The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) has moved closer to international recognition as an inter-parliamentary organisation after its General Assembly adopted constitutional amendments at the 69th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Cape Town.
The amendments are intended to align the CPA’s governance framework with its proposed new legal and institutional status as it transitions from a charity registered under United Kingdom law.
This is something the CPA Africa Region has campaigned for for years. The campaign was driven by a central concern that the organisation is funded principally through subscriptions paid by parliamentary branches across the Commonwealth but remains registered as a charity in the United Kingdom. The Region argued that the CPA’s legal status should reflect its parliamentary membership of over 180 member parliaments and legislatures and its international work.
From Charity Status to International Recognition
The push for change in status has followed a slow but deliberate path through the Commonwealth’s own parliamentary forums.
In 2016, the matter returned with greater force at the 62nd Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in London. There, the General Assembly agreed that an expert committee should examine the legal and tax implications of changing the CPA’s status. By 2017, that committee had met in London, and its report had reached the CPA Executive Committee at its mid-year meeting in Darwin, Australia. From there, the recommendations were moved forward for consideration at the General Assembly meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh, following the 63rd Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference.
Why the Current Status Is Contested
The constitutional concern centres on Article 37(2) of the CPA Constitution, which has been interpreted as preventing amendments that would enable the Association to cease being a charity under the law of the jurisdiction where its Secretariat is established. The CPA Africa Region has argued that such a provision should not bind an organisation whose work is parliamentary, political and international in nature.
Against that backdrop, the CPA’s charitable registration appeared increasingly out of step with the global role it performs.
The Financial and Diplomatic Stakes
As a registered charity in the United Kingdom, the CPA is subject to that country’s legal and tax framework. Yet its principal income is drawn from subscription fees paid by parliamentary branches across the Commonwealth, often using public funds from sovereign jurisdictions. For critics of the current arrangement, that raises a difficult question: should public money from national legislatures support an organisation treated in law as a charity based in one country?
The Africa Region’s case is that the CPA’s work has moved beyond the ordinary understanding of a charity. Its meetings bring together political leaders and legislators to discuss governance, democracy and parliamentary cooperation. With a membership network serving thousands of parliamentarians across nine regions, supporters say the Association should be treated as a diplomatic entity rather than confined to the charitable category.
Such a shift, its proponents argued, would strengthen the CPA’s mandate as a voice for parliamentarians and the people they represent.
The constitutional amendments adopted in Cape Town form part of a broader legal and institutional process. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Act of 2025 provides the legal mechanism through which the CPA may be granted corporate legal capacity and specified privileges and immunities in the United Kingdom. The applicable legal instruments and transition arrangements will determine the precise privileges, immunities and tax arrangements.
The President of the CPA and Chairperson of South Africa’s National Council of Provinces, Ms Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane, described the decision as the culmination of sustained advocacy by CPA members.
Abel Mputing
18 September 2026
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