Jolyon Maugham Gets It Wrong Again

[Arran2024]

Hilarious addition to today's happy news about the legal definition of 'woman'.

https://x.com/Gillian_Philip/status/1912480491405443123

He must be very foolish. He clearly hasn't read the judgement, which painstakingly explains how the judges came to the conclusion they did (and remember it was unanimous). For example, the Equality Act was drawn from the 1974 Sex Discrimination Act, which very definitely referred to biological sex, because there were no gender recognition certificates then. Similarly, when the Act is talking about pregnancy and birth it is very obviously talking about biological women, and it would be anomalous for the Act to be using a definition of women as biological in one part, but not the others.

The judgement also points out that if you allow men with a GRC into single-sex spaces, then lesbians would no longer have the right to gather without the presence of men.

It's a very lengthy and considered judgement. The point, ultimately, is that if they had ruled in favour of a definition that included men with a GRC, it would have created a massively complicated and confusing legal mess.

Oh, I agree completely. I just haven't decided whether he's doing a performance for his political allies, in which case he actually does understand the legal situation, or whether his fanaticism on this one subject has clouded his ability to think.

I like the guy personally, but it's a poor show. I don't care what your ideological commitments are, if you're a lawyer people will turn to you to explain the law, and you have to be willing to tell them bluntly why they're on a losing wicket.

It's very much the same as Jolyon telling TRAs what they want to hear.

He’s finished

I read on X that he now has two children identifying as transgender - someone had found an interview of them.

For anyone who wants an extra giggle today here is his utterly insane take on the ruling:

https://archive.is/xWnp7

Love this bit

We know this because the organisation I run, Good Law Project, has funded and supported their legal actions in the past and we have seen the consequences.

Yes the consequences were you made a lot of money and you LOST.

He even boasts about the incompetent way he makes money:

But we did persuade the two architects of the Gender Recognition Act that created that certificate to intervene: an academic, Stephen Whittle, and until she resigned because of what she experienced as a judge, our only “out” trans High Court judge, Victoria McCloud. Both trans, both with a gender recognition certificate.
Three barristers worked on their intervention – two are now KCs – and they spent hundreds of hours and many tens of thousands of pounds working on it. We funded them. But without even giving reasons, the Supreme Court flatly refused.

He raised £31,874 from 849 donors for that without having any real basis to intervene it was a waste of time and money.

I think it's useful to remember this: the Good Law Project and Jolyon Maugham personally always win... money. They get paid regardless of how many cases they lose. They have no need to win cases as long as there is a steady stream of idiots willing to bankroll them.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the GLP is a limited company who only have to post small business accounts with Companies House. For all their cant about transparency, there are very reluctant to disclose who they actually give money to. You can see this in the accounts where they post how much they spend on "legal advice" which in previous years was over a million pounds. Who did the give these huge sums to? Nobody knows, but those windmills don't pay for themselves.

Who are the fools who keep donating to them? That’s what I want to know? You’d think after so many losses people wouldn’t bother.

That is fabulous.

Are they all located in Garden Court Chambers?

ETA: re the boast that he has an unblemished reputation - he really needs to stop blocking people.

Located in echo chambers more like

Victoria McCloud, who was essentially offered the chance to resign quietly, as them had been overtly politically active. Hmm, they is so VERY credible, isn't them?

JKR saw JM's post and found it interesting. :)

J.K. Rowling

The Supreme Court upheld the rights of women and gay people today. Now they're getting a 'kicking' from the man who tried and failed to sue a gay rights charity out of existence. I'm guessing they'll sleep just fine.

More...

J.K. Rowling

Maugham has an unblemished professional record in the same way that I have an unblemished karaoke record: misplaced confidence followed by making a complete tit of yourself.

As someone upthread said, Jolyon has trans identifying child/ren. Like others with trans identifying children he cannot afford to admit that he may have been wrong.

The advantage of having a lawyer with skin in the game is that he'll fight like crazy for his position. The disadvantage is that he won't be able to be objective about the strength or weakness of that position.

IANAL, but something I know quite a lot about is polling. The pollster who tells her client what they want to hear is IMO guilty of malpractice.

If a TRA group hired me to advise them on a political campaign, I'd say "The electorate objectively is not buying what you're selling. Your demands have 20% support max, and that's probably exaggerated due to social desirability bias. You need to scale back your demands, find a narrative that can win sympathy and see if you can get that 20% up to 30%."

Luckily for our side, people in ideological bubbles don't think like that. If everyone you know is a massive TRA or feels they have to pretend to be, it's easy to convince yourself that your position has overwhelming support and all you need to do is bully the minority into silence. They can't even see that they're the extremist minority.

I can't decide if he spoke to 3 people who identified as KCs or if he identified as having spoke to 3 KCs

JM gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure yesterday. Quite a change for him. Shame he won't have seen any of it as he's got so many people blocked.

This is interesting. Very carefully worded to avoid suggesting that there might be a blood relationship between 'RJW' and JM, which would obviously be pure speculation.

Good Law Project: JoMo v MoFo | Labour Pains

If a case is so straightforward as to be 'not arguable' then how da fuq does it make it all the way to the Supreme Court?

Surely a proper lawyer would know this?

I hope not, he's an important source of online comedy for me.

Sometimes I imagine Jolyon is one of those fictional characters that entertain us while suckering the gullible into believing that they're real, like Ali G or Laurie Penny.

It seems like professional suicide to me. His commentary doesn’t align with what the case set out to determine and what was ruled. His objections linked to the judges not hearing from trans people infers that the judges chose whose evidence they heard.

He throws in a few comments about the legal system not being fit for purpose, which does make me think that he knows that he is spouting shit, but thinks the ends justifies the means. In criticising the ‘legal system’ in a broad brush way, he could make a (very weak) defence that he knew what the judges needed to rule on and who is responsible for the evidence placed before them, but was choosing to focus attention on other matters.

FWS chose who to put in front of the judges to give evidence in support of their case, and the Scottish Government chose who they wanted to give evidence- and could have included trans people if they so chose.

It's not professional suicide to spout incorrect nonsense if that nonsense has sufficient appeal to a sufficient number of paying punters.

Of course, if fashions change and the paying punters are no longer there, one would presumably have to pivot smartly, or just retire.

HES NO EVEN DIGINFED THE CHEESE MAN WI A RESPONSE

Plus, I said on another thread that I’d happily contribute to a crowd funder for a trans activist looking to employ his services (or those of Robin Moira White) because:

a) it’s comedy gold
b) you’re actually paying for a GC win and
c) the more cases they take up the more GC wins get racked up.

It may be a grift, but he’s a GC gift.