Legal challenge on FOI refusal over CPS School Guide

[GrumpyMenopausalWombWielder]

This is an interesting case happening now, with Naomi Cunningham arguing strongly against the reasons given by the CPS for the refusal to disclose the discussions/consultations that took place to eventually produce a school guide that was so poor it was withdrawn when Threatened with judicial review.

Link to Tribunal Tweet Thread

It'll be interesting to see what decision is made here.

Thank you GrumpyMenopausalWombWielder
I'm so pleased to see that this has not been left for the CPS to hide the reasons for producing the appalling guidelines (that were some of the worst I have seen in this whole depressing saga of gaslighting girls via trans policies).
I note the defence that publicly paid civil servants must not be identified even if they've produced illegal and biased material in case it affects their willingness to use work time to produce more illegal and biased material guidelines

Fab user name btw

Thanks

It's been interesting reading the reasons being given not to disclose - they don't want to appear partisan/biased to one side but they only consulted one side

I hope the FOI decision gets overturned, because the engagement/consultation that produced that school guide really does need to see the light of day.

We definitely need sunlight - this is the CPS fgs. Who make decisions about charging people with crimes. That they employ adults to write advice for schools telling children if they don't include a gender confused child in their friendship group they could be guilty of a hate crime is terrifying in terms of child psychology and friendships. It's what really alerted me about the dangers to children of imposing these beliefs on schools.
And as we've seen from the awful treatment of the 6th form girl, these fears have turned to a depressing reality.
Do you know what happens next? I was a bit confused by the end.

I think the decision is to come at a separate date, in writing? Not sure how long it'll take but the whole arguments were made today so just a case of the judge giving their verdict.

Is there a garden somewhere?

I could be wrong but I think the journalist who submitted the FOI might well have their employer backing them? I've not seen any plea for gardening.

Following, thanks for posting.

That's interesting OP. The press have a history of challenging public bodies in the courts when they try to cover up things. Looking forward to seeing the outcome.

Thanks for the thread! Another one to keep up with! TT are doing great work.

Just adding a link to the substack page where hopefully everything will be collated. The Twitter thread has been archived for posterity. tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/freedom-of-information-appeal-against?s=r

The CPS is a shitshow at present. No friend to women.

Thanks for the update, OP.

Thanks for update.

Oh this is good. I hope they get a result.

Here's a link to the Tribunal Tweets Substack page on the hearing. Easier to read from there.

This is the ICO decision notice about this case.

ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2021/4018409/ic-72577-f0s7.pdf

Thanks for this, I wasn’t aware this was going on - Naomi Cunningham doing brilliant work there, great to read.

I note the defence that publicly paid civil servants must not be identified even if they've produced illegal and biased material in case it affects their willingness to use work time to produce more illegal and biased material guidelines

Indeed. Seems like a massive DARVO to me, I note they’ve done what TRAs habitually do and taken a concept that we’ve argued is negatively impacting us (the chilling effect) and completely unjustifiably turned it around to make themselves seem like the victims.

They seem to be arguing that expecting them as public servants to be accountable for the processes they follow, or fail to follow, is akin to using authoritarian methods to suppress free speech in the general population, on issues that directly affect that population.

Can anyone help parse further exactly what is so wrong about that parallel? I’m hungover and my fuddled brain struggling to pinpoint it!

Also, the fact they’re still apparently so worried about alienating Stonewall et al does not convince me that the prejudice behind those hateful “guidelines” has disappeared from the CPS.

In a word "Safespace".

Legislation is passed in public and the process is open to public scrutiny.

The staff in charge are attempting to formulating how to implement the legislation which the public children would have to abide by.

The principle has to be Governance by laws passed in public. Its why FOI legislation exists.

It is like a planning department saying that they don't have to disclose the contacts they had with Developer A before writing up the development plan which just happens to only rezone all of Developer A's holdings and restricts the neighbours ability to ask how that happened.

If the advocate stakeholder is not willing to present their case to the general public ( that is testimony ) then the CPS needs to question why any member of the public should be potentially crimimalised because of it.

As (trained) professionals they should be able to ask the difficult if questions and explore outcomes and then make decisions. If the individual staff member is not professionally capable of doing that then the staff member should not be involved with writing policy.

Thank you both. This is so clear. I hadn't appreciated the DARVO aspects of it. It is quite incredible that the Information Commissioner agreed with the concept of safe spaces for CPS employees to to plan how to both criminalise children for their friendship groups and potentially legitimise indecent exposure (thinking of school mixed sex changing rooms for swimming lessons).

I presume the IOC is not a Stonewall champion? Wonder if they've received training from Stonewall / Gendered Intelligence etc??

If only Boris had designated those parties 'safe spaces' then not only would he have not had any of the hassle, he could also shout 'Bigot' at any opposition MPs questioning him and criticise them for having a chilling effect on government.