Maya Forstater Tribunal March 2022- Thread 2

[Sophoclesthefox]

Forgive the presumption, @Mforstater, but you’re probably busy in the pub right now, or passing on all of the fan mail to you legal team so I’ve made a new thread to carry on the fascinating discussion.

Round up your cats, rabbits and weasels, and let’s go!

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From thread one, here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4498167-Maya-Forstater-hearing-starts-Monday

Hi all,

Thank you so much for all your support: emotional, intellectual, financial, spiritual(!) reading the Mumsnet feminism board is where this all started for me!

The case starts tomorrow.

It is all online. If you want to watch you need to email the tribunal for a log in to [email protected]

It kicks off at 10am - the first bit will be "admin" between the judges and the lawyers working out the timings, issues and any reporting restrictions hmm.

Once that is all sorted the judge and the panel will go away to read (probably for the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday)

I will most likely give evidence Wednesday and Thursday.

@tribunaltweets will be tweeting the whole thing (assuming they get permission from the judge)

Links to papers will go up throughout the case at www.hiyamaya.net.

Any other questions I am happy to answer them (apart from the ones where I have to say "that is for the tribunal to hear"...)

I have made a spectators guide with FAQs etc here

Lots of love

Maya

Long pause.

BC asks about an email 3 March from OB. It talks about finding funding for MF's work and some problems finding funding because the topic is controversial in the sector.

So the material reality of men and women and if they even exist at all in a legal, biological or categorical sense has zero bearing on any of their work?

Oh please.

This was a point I remember Maya repeatedly making - how often sex was relevant in the international development field.

And repeatedly highlighting various things being issued from such orgs, where they said "gender" and pointing out that they must mean "sex", or it wouldn't make sense.

MP confirms.

BC says OB said in the email that he wanted to bring MF on as staff. BC says there is an indication to the claimant of this.

MP: Can't comment more than on what the email says.

BC moves to a 2019 budget overview from June 2018. In this, it says if funding permits, we propose to take on MF to take forward work on tax and transparency.

@NecessaryScene

So the material reality of men and women and if they even exist at all in a legal, biological or categorical sense has zero bearing on any of their work?

Oh please.

This was a point I remember Maya repeatedly making - how often sex was relevant in the international development field.

And repeatedly highlighting various things being issued from such orgs, where they said "gender" and pointing out that they must mean "sex", or it wouldn't make sense.

Yes exactly.

He's not the only thing that's barking in this whole debacle!

It seems that MP been called as a witness to explore the issue of whether MF was going to be taken on as a staff member.

We're back to the employment issue.

BC reads a recommendation to incur staff costs. BC says this makes it clear that the recommendation is to hire MF.

MP: Doesn't agree. It's to engage her to take forward work. It's in contrast to another member of staff who is named in a specific role. There is no title so it could mean as a contractor.

BC challenges: the fact that you need to sub in a phrase to make your phrase make sense proves my point. She was already a contractor, so 'take on' would only make sense (BC suggests) if it meant hire.

BC says this must mean 'take on' in a new capacity but MP disagrees. BC points out that it talks about incurring new cost and risk, and this must mean permanent employment.

MP: Says correct that taking on an employee does incur risk.

BC says MF is included in that group of incurring staff costs and risks - clearly a recommendation to hire.

MP doesn't agree.

BC: Moves on to email to MF from MP. 8 August 2018. Suggests it discusses the expectation that MP would get 50% of MF time. BC says MP wrote that it could be discussed to bring her on as a staff fellow.

MP: Yes.

BC accepts discuss doesn't mean binding offer.

MP: Agrees

BC asks whether MP agrees, if those discussions happened with a recommendation from you that it should happen, with no serious opposition, that could happen very quickly?

MP doesn't agree. There is a process.

MP says MF would have needed support from OB and MP, convince the President that she merited this job offer, give a 'job talk'.

BC says this is the process for a senior fellow, not for a research fellow.

MP says it as that rigorous.

MP's line is that the discussion was all about possibly inviting MF to apply to be employed by CGD.

Terfydactyl, I didn't know the Grinch. Googled it and yes, I see what you mean!

Owen Barder is still listed on the CGD website although he left some time ago:

www.cgdev.org/expert/owen-barder

Seems quite clear to me she would have been hired for further work if not for her belief that sex is immutable and women exist. If you're at the point of discussing how she would split her time it seems a given pretty much.

IANAL though.

BC says MP's phrase 'my understanding' reflects that this is something he has been led to believe and MP agrees.

BC goes to witness statement. MP says he had a conversation with MA (Masood Ahmed) when he told MP he had already considered bringing MF on as an employee and established two conditions.

BC said OD was going to ask a question about the timing of that conversation. Does MP remember it?

This section isn't very clear to me.

BC suggests the conversation happened around the time they were discussing MF's future in mid October.

MP said it was whenever it came on Mr Ahmed's radar that the Gates grant included MF in the funding, but he doesn't know when that was.

BC says MF was always in the funding from Gates.

MP says Mr Ahmed didn't know that.

BC suggests that the point at which MA zoned in on that was when MP and colleagues were discussing MF's renewal as a VF.

MP says he doesn't know.

BC says it's clear that as of August, MP knew the claimant had been led to believe that when the funding came through she would be put into the hiring process, with MP's recommendation and that of OB.

MP: OB had indicated that we could push that forward with the funding.

BC trying to establish that MF had been led to believe that she would be put into a hiring process when the funding came through, with his support.

MP: No. We could discuss it.

BC again pushing on this. Clear message that MF was given, was if and when the funding came through, the effort to hire her would be made.

MP: I don't know what she had been told. I have some understanding from OB but I don't know what OB told her.

BC says clear message in the bundle is that once we have the funding, we start the hiring process.

MP: It would be a process.

BC: Understood. Clear message you were giving was... etc (repeats).

MP: I say we can discuss it.

BC says the proposal to Gates clearly identified MF as a staff member.

MP says it was in her role as visiting fellow.

BC says it clearly suggested she would be an employee.

MP: The inference on that was drawn from the addition of benefit costs in the budget.

They go to look at the budget.

Budget table puts the claimant in personnel (this has been covered with AG evidence as well), with benefits and payroll taxes.

MP says yes.

BC asks, does this document on the face of it describe MF as a personnel staff member?

MP: Yes, and as AG said, that was an error.

BC: This document was scrutinised, because this was the biggest ever grant CGDE had applied for?

MP: It did, but it was out of CGD not CGDE.

BC says the idea that this was an error isn't credible.

BC really getting into the nitty-gritty of an argument that CGD will change the past in order to get the benefit in court today.

MP believes it is.

BC asks how evidence was entered in to the tribunal that MF was described as a consultant in this document, when she isn't?

MP: Again, the document was a mistake. There was never any commitment of employment made.

The budget table discussion is embarrassing.

I missed AG's account of this but MP is fronting up the same way as far as I can tell.

I'm astonished that a grant of this magnitude, with that much scrutiny got through with what is now claimed to be such a substantial error. Or how it got through the legal pleadings (I see MP picked up the phrases OD intervened to put down about not being involved in the drafting of the legal pleadings).

Just who does do the editing, scrutiny, and fact-checking for this organisation?

BC asks whether MP can explain how the legal pleading in the case falsely described the document?

MP: I was not involved in the drafting of the legal pleading.

BC asks about how much MP can help us here. Acc to BC: MP says to the claimant in August, if we get funding, we will discuss bringing you on (MP agrees); in a carefully drafted proposal to a major funder in which the claimant is copied in, it says she is going to be an employee (MP says she is listed under personnel with benefits); BC says it wasn't the intention to engage her as a consultant.

MP says he said he might bring her on as an employee, but there was no commitment (again).

BC says the Gates proposal wasn't an error, it reflected an intention.

MP says it was a mistake to ascribe benefits to MF. It was a mistake.

BC says it wasn't intended that she would be a consultant. No definite commitment, but the intention was there.

MP says intention was to have her work on the Gates work in whatever capacity

BC says the proposal rightly puts her in the category that MP was contemplating MF being in.

MP: It was a mistake in so far as we assigned her the status of employee.

BC: That was definitely something you were looking at.

MP: yes, but no kind of commitment.

Right, BC's argument is not that MF had been offered a job but there was an intention in CGD to make her an employee and this was then binned with the subsequent events occurred.

(Right, some radio silence from me.)

"the pleadings which we can assume were carefully drafted"

miaow