Scottish Ministers to explain why equality law was ignored in changing 'woman' definition

[MiladyBerserko]

www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/19699022.trans-row-ministers-explain-equality-law-ignored-changing-woman-definition/

This is from the JR raised by ForwomenScot.

The outcome is still to be determined

Why women and the electorate were ignored would be interesting too.

Largely because they would have returned the Wrong Answer. And have this weird idea persisting that the Scots ministers are there to serve them and that they live in a democracy.

Nice to see it on page 2 of print edition as well. Sunlight!

Front page

And it seems EHRC response to the draft bill was 'why are you focusing on women? What about other protected characteristics?' The EHRC really don't want to acknowledge sex as a protected characteristic do they?

Are other groups having their definition illegally rewritten? The EHRC might have a point if the class of 'disabled' people was being 'expanded' to include able bodied people.

Front page! Even better.
I turned over front Cop26 sheet and front page together and missed it

It's very interesting to see that all the comments are against the SNP's policy, and how many have been written by men.

I'm really glad FWS are pursuing this

Front cover, lots of sunlight.

#WomenWontWheesht 💪💪💪

Thank you FWS

Does anyone know how the judicial review was left? Are they still hearing evidence or are we waiting for the judgement. Is the info they want from the government going to be given in court? I couldn't work it out from the article.

Waiting for judges to decide

Thanks. So presumably the explanation or info the judges have asked for will be sent through while they are deciding.

Fingers crossed.

This is jaw dropping stuff - they even tried to put in a clause to 'disapply' something in the Equality Act that was in the way. Unbelievable, even for Sturgeon. That QC is having to work hard for her money and it looks as if she thinks there is nothing to offer - in answer to the judge's questions - to show how all this was considered and arrived at in government and parliament.

The comments on the article are interesting, notably from Lorna Campbell, but several other contributors as well.

Can someone tell me if the EHRC are still captured? I had the impression they are much less worrying since the new boss took over. But I keep seeing disturbing references to them… is this stuff all a hangover from the previous EHRC administration? Or are they still trying to erase women in law?

@Abitofalark

This is jaw dropping stuff - they even tried to put in a clause to 'disapply' something in the Equality Act that was in the way. Unbelievable, even for Sturgeon. That QC is having to work hard for her money and it looks as if she thinks there is nothing to offer - in answer to the judge's questions - to show how all this was considered and arrived at in government and parliament.

The comments on the article are interesting, notably from Lorna Campbell, but several other contributors as well.

It's incredible.

We are talking about completely jettisoning the rule of law to enable ideological bias and erode the rights of another class of person with legally protected characteristics (women with the PC of Sex)

"In GRPB, the definition of a 'woman' was changed from an original drafting from “a female of any age” – the definition in the UK Equality Act of 2010, to include a “person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment”."

So we can scream and shout over Brexit: finer details about fish; and the finer details of the Northern Ireland Protocol, but rewriting the definition of over half the Scottish population, is no big deal?

Where is Boris Johnson's government (Michael Gove as Cabinet Secretary responsible for constitutional affairs)? He should have been demanding what's going on with Scotland appropriating powers from Westminster, or do Scots Women not count?

Where was the Press? Where was the BBC when Sturgeon's government was doing the below?

"And it has emerged that judges have raised questions about Section 11 of the GRPB Act which aimed to "disapply" parts of the UK 2010 Equalities Act - which protects women against sex discrimination and which restrict positive discrimination."

Is that the deal? Tories let SNP get away with screwing women over, in exchange for nominally remaining a part of the UK? Heads up, Boris and co. If you allow appropriation of powers not devolved in one policy area (aka law breaking), don't be surprised if SNP continue to agitate for more measures to assert their Independence (in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the UK).

You are emboldening the breakup of the union, because you consider women as disposable.

Sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act actually allow positive action measures such as those in the GRPB Bill, as it was introduced to Parliament (the version which only stated "women", as per the Equality Act).

However, since 158/159 state that such measures can only be taken for "persons who share a protected characteristic" it became problematic when the Scottish Govt amended the definition of woman to one which included people who did not share protected characteristics.

Their new definition of woman included women (PC= female, no PC of gender reassignment) PLUS those people with the PC=male and the PC of gender reassignment. ie. transwomen. So none of the people covered shared the protected characteristic of sex=female. And none shared the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

And strangely, those people who actually did share both protected characteristics of female and gender reassignment ie. transmen, were excluded from the definition.

One of the judges did ask the Govt QC if that was the reason why Section 11(1) of the GRPB Act disapplied sections 158/159, to which she replied that that may be the case. However, she then returned to the reason previously given that they were disapplied to prevent "an overlap" between the two pieces of legislation.

She had also argued in the first judicial review hearing that the L2 exception in the Scotland Act allowed the Scottish Govt to ride roughshod over the Equality Act.

The judges were interested in the Scottish Govt's reason for disapplying 158/159, as if they thought L2 exempted them from abiding by the Equality Act there was no need to include any disapplication of it in the GRPB Act. The judges said Scottish Ministers must have given the matter consideration since they gave instructions for it to be drafted into the law.

However the QC did not have an answer for this and none was forthcoming from those instructing her during the course of the hearing. The judges have retired to make their decision on the case and the QC has promised to find and supply the court with the evidence of the Govt's reasoning, if indeed it exists.

Thanks for that fabulously clarifying post Betsy

evidence of the Govt's reasoning, if indeed it exists that'll be non-minuted meetings that can't be FOI'd I assume

If not eaten by the Welsh parliament's Equality Impact Assessment dog.

(Who also ate every trace of each and every email relating to it, and the minutes of all the meetings where the assessment was commissioned and discussed, and where outcomes informed actions, or even evidence of who did the assessment. It's like magic.)

That's one well trained dog!! Emails must take months of additional training.

Maybe there's a similarly well trained haggis

@BetsyM00 thank you for the very informative post.

It's fantastic to see this on the front page! There's going to be a hell of a lot of people who haven't really been aware of what's happening saying 'changed the definition of woman?!'

Another one who agrees that the Welsh dog is no doubt speeding across country for a period of speedy chewing.

@2319inprogress

That's one well trained dog!! Emails must take months of additional training.

Maybe there's a similarly well trained haggis

Indeed. Or they feed all inconvenient evidence to the neeps.

Link to twitter thread

"That QC is having to work hard for her money and it looks as if she thinks there is nothing to offer - in answer to the judge's questions - to show how all this was considered and arrived at in government and parliament."

The linked thread above goes into details about what is public/known about the process gone through to change the original intended wording to redefining 'woman' to mean anyone who claims they are one.

The linked FOI mentioned confirmed meetings with Equality Network/Scottish Trans Alliance just days before the amendment was lodged. They weren't able to "identify any minutes or notes related to these meetings". I'd be astonished if they somehow found minutes/notes at this stage. It's worth bearing in mind that the Equality Network/STA intervened in the 1st hearing and provided (as I understand it) the testimony of a number of male people who fall under the wide definition of 'woman' as defined in the GRPB with intentions to apply for board positions.

There was a large amount of correspondence also uncovered from the work that lead up to the 1st GRA reform consultation in Scotland where the legal unit were shown in discussions with Equality Network/STA to accept a lot of the explanations given as to why sex & gender should be conflated etc. - that comes from work by Press for Change's GRA work leading up to the GRA 2004 act, specifically Stephen Whittle, who wanted the conflation so as to 'prevent' the ability of service providers being able to exclude males who identified as transsexual but had a GRC, from female only provision on the basis that the GRC changed 'gender' not sex.

At no point in the 100s of pages of correspondence does the legal unit tasked with formulating the 1st consultation apply any critical thinking over what that actually means in terms of the impact on anyone else, and there's no notes consideration of the legality in terms of reserved U.K. Equality legislation. My gut instinct is that Equality Network/STA were considered 'experts' and very little of what they offered up in terms of demands, lobbying, policy drafting etc. was scrutinised as it should have been.

It's fascinating to see this appeal actually hone in on that. EN/STA wrote the wording of the GRPB definition of women & the answer to any considerations on whether it was lawful or within the legislative competency of the Scottish Parliament are not with Scotgov as they simply acquiesced to EN/STA on this.

The last point I'll make is that Talat Yaqoob of Close The Gap (the org whose work effectively agitated for this specific legislation) gave evidence at the committee stages too, and fully backed EN/STA on widening the definition specifically to cater to EN/STA's requirements. She was also considered the 'voice of authority' re women's perspective on this, and she willingly supported this. What's not evident anywhere I've looked is her work on researching women's views of this - she didn't research, she didn't poll, she didn't seek any consensus & she certainly didn't consider the impact on women's rights under the equality act.

I'm keeping fingers crossed this goes FWS way. 🤞

From sources who are “ following “ the hearing “ the judges sound very pissed off about what they are being told” Judges won’t like being hoodwinked or lied to so fingers crossed!