Is anyone judicially reviewing this stuff?

[thiskitten]

Fairly recent peak trans. Lurking since then really.

Just wondering if anyone (organisations etc) are, or are considering bringing a judicial review on any of the recent goings on?

Oh, this is very encouraging! I'd be very happy to donate to a crowdfunder. Please do this!

I would also happily donate to fund legal challenges etc. Fab stuff :)

Yes happy for anyone to PM me.

I am a lawyer and have thought a lot about the need to get more of this into court. The TRA bullshit is not going to wash under legal scrutiny.

The Leeds Council decision would be an interesting JR case.

I sincerely hope personal injury and HR lawyers are crawling all over the cases of Karen White’s fellow female prisoners. The insurance premiums will rise and prison insurers will start to put pressure on the prison governors.

Any female prisoners housed with men who are reading this: call a litigation lawyer!

Yes the Leeds issue seems like a good one to consider- especially as (I understand) the last minute cancellation and then having to race around to find a new less accessible venue meant some (presumably less able bodied) people were unable to attend.

Fellow lawyers - I'm mulling over the Leeds cancellation of the meeting. Sex discrimination surely? Articles 9/10/11/14 ECHR engaged I would think. Public Sector Equality Duty issues.

Could we collectively give some serious thought to whether this would be a good candidate for litigation? Has anyone discussed with WPUK whether they would be interested?

From WPUK's Twitter it seems as if some legal people might be in touch with them tho' I have no idea how it might/not pan out.

None of the women's organisations have the funds to afford an action afaik and this seems to be a substantial reason for them not to divert resources to something that would take money they don't have and would tie up personnel (also limited and voluntary).

However, for some time I've wondered how much longer the groups have to weather being characterised as "far right" "hate groups" "reported to anti-terrorist units" "categorised alongside Britain First" before there is a need to push back because its impeding the right to speak/assemble etc.

As is obvious, I know nothing - I fret.

Arranfan

I'm not on twitter so I hadn't seen that.

Yes the financial aspect is a big stumbling block. There would have to be a massive crowd funding effort.

Paradoxically I think an individual (e.g. Woman assaulted by a TW prisoner) would be easier financially because they would probably get legal aid. But it would be harder to find someone in that position prepared to go through litigation (by definition they are most likely vulnerable and marginalised).

Tweet: Forgive us if we are not responding or tweeting much today. We are offline investigating events of last night and considering next steps. Thank you for offers of help - legal & otherwise - we are in touch with lawyers

twitter.com/Womans_Place_UK/status/1045994413426659329

Overall their timeline is worth reading through for the last 48 hrs or so.

How much do we need to raise?

Ideally there needs to be some sort of centralised fighting fund administered by people who know their stuff, that can be used for various strategic legal purposes. It's too slow waiting for an event and then crowdfunding - need to have the money and sympathetic legal team already in place with an eye to jumping in where most beneficial.

If any of the women assaulted by K White were to pursue legal action action, I would chip in.

Where councils have written "gender" instead of "sex" in their equality duty pages, can we legally challenge that? When I get a survey at work that says "gender" instead of "sex" and then goes on to ask questions relating to biology, is it possible to challenge that?

Now that I’ve cancelled Ocado smartpass and union membership, I have some cash burning a hole in my pocket.

Do we need to set up a charity to hold the funds? Like TELI

Yes I've said elsewhere Elletoro that we should have something like TELI.

As to costs, ideally we would find lawyers to act pro bono which would keep costs down.

Even if our lawyers are doing it for free there is still financial risk though, the chance we'd have to pay for the other side's costs if we lost for example.

If a lawyer really wants to do it for free and there's no way we can afford to pay then we would have no alternative.

However.

I was waiting for some suggestion that someone works for free in this. I think we should aim to have at least some pay. Women do an awful lot of work for free already. We shouldn't perpetrate that. Maybe in the initial stages of a charity it would be necessary, but the goal, I feel, should be that women are compensated for there time, as much as possible.

And I'd add to crowdfunding too.

*their

*Not
*
Of course it would be better to be able to pay, I was just being realistic.

There is a strong tradition of barristers (I am one) acting pro bono. I don't think it's a "women thing" in this case (although I absolutely accept that more generally women do far too much unpaid work). A lot of barristers do feel they can and should use their skills to help worthy causes and I don't think there's any shame in tapping into that if necessary.

Thinking strategically it might be necessary to generate publicity via litigation (with lawyers acting pro bono if necessary) which in turn will lead to greater fundraising capacity so that future cases could be properly funded.

I would be happy to contribute to any legal challenges, financially and in any other way I might be able to help.

ATE insurance is what you purchase in order to protect yourself against the risk of paying the other side's costs. It is a standard part of legal funding these days.

I don't know whether these type of cases we're talking about fall within the scope of what they do, but the obvious place to try and get involved would be the Centre for Women's Justice
www.centreforwomensjustice.org.uk/

I don't know loads about them but I think they have crowdfunded before, e.g. on the Worboys case JR. Any case related to Karen White would seem to be within scope of what they do. Also some of the people involved would be sympathetic at least to GC views.

I am really heartened by this thread and would certainly be happy to contribute as generously as I could to any legal action. I'm not a lawyer but it's clear to me that this is a course we really need to take. Indeed, if legal action had been taken to enforce the protection afforded to women as a protected category earlier, I suspect we wouldn't be in the situation we are now.

I wonder whether we shouldn't start crowdfunding now and invite some of you here, and possibly others, (Helena Kennedy, author of Eve Was Framed, what about you?) to start looking for potential cases where a JR or equalities intervention needs to be made.

In talking to people on the street many of them have been aware of the prisons/ Karen White situation and most have been appalled by it. I know a woman fairly recently retired from the prison service who has said that she and her colleagues were waiting for a legal challenge on issue because certainly she and her contacts didn't like the current situation any more than we GC feminists do. Lawyers — is there a way to take this up that you can see?

I think JR of the Leeds CC decision would be out of scope for CWJ: their focus is on male violence. www.centreforwomensjustice.org.uk/about/ The Karen White case would have been ideal for JR, but too late now.

We need a properly-constituted Women's Legal Defence Fund with trustees and all the rest of it to:

1. have a stash of ready money to pay court fees and legal fees.
2. maintain a roster of lawyers who will represent women's groups.
3. monitor for cases where strategic litigation could be useful and proactively contact potential plaintiffs (e.g. the victims in the KW case).

So that we can:

1. act promptly in time-limited cases without worrying about funding delays.
2. act for and with women who wouldn't otherwise consider JR feasible or even know it existed.

I don't think we should pressure CWJ to broaden scope because 1) they should set their scope, 2) plurality of activist groups is a good thing, 3) when an organisation's scope broadens too much, they risk internal conflict.

I agree. We need to be prepared and on the lookout for suitable cases.

Is there anyone prepared to set up a crowdfunding page or an account we can send money to?

Nothing like money in the bank to focus attention.

bd67th I completely agree. A properly constituted charity would be easier to fundraise for too. But it would mean the trustees have to out themselves from the beginning.

On CWJ It's generally better to keep talking to other groups who have a similar mission (though I agree theirs is not the same mission). That would include FPfW etc too.

This is the most important thread on this board. Everyone make sure we stick within the rules of the site! We wouldn't want to lose it.