Sara Morrison v BFF Thread 3

[SexRealistic]

For background please read here:

https://genderblog.net/sara-morrison-v-belfast-film-festival/

Hmm. How is the Judge sitting alone helpful?

The top juniors used to help the ROSPA team by acting out road safety skits for the younger kids. I wonder if the volunteers who got knocked down by the wooden ice-cream van for green X code failures are in trauma therapy now as middle aged adults.😂

So was I, I’m very proud of it. I remember it as keep the brownie guide code.
I once won a leotard from Tammy magazine and I have level 2 ice skating and level 3 skiing badges. That must be worth some sort of title?

edit to add I’d forgotten I’ve name changed but regular lurker occasional poster

Wonder if McKeown is prepping for a Rapid Onset Neurological Condition

Given the concerns raised about these two particular panel members, I'm wondering how the Judge selects panel members (if they do choose them). Do panel members express an interest in particular cases, for example?

stops the money spent so far being wasted
but puts the WHOLE tribunal system on notice that they are being scrutinised

From NW

The Respondent (the Belfast Film Festival) says in response to the Recusal application:
"In the application the Claimant has instructed her legal representatives to make, it is suggested that:

"'NIPSA has since at least 2015 been actively and uncritically supportive of gender identity ideology and thus necessarily hostile to the sex-realist/gender-critical viewpoint'..."

"The contention on behalf of the Claimant is therefore that if you hold a political opinion, someone who holds a diametrically opposed opinion will necessarily be hostile to you...

... That is simply untrue. Many people can disagree on political matters and not be hostile to those with whom they disagree...

... A fair-minded observer would not come to the conclusion that hostility towards each other is the necessary outworking of holding differing political opinions."

"The logic of the Claimant's argument, if extended to other cases, would mean that a panel member who holds unionist political opinions could not sit on a Fair Employment Tribunal...

... panel in a case brought by someone who supports the unification of Ireland. That is patently absurd."

"The suggestion that Mr McKeown shares the views of the Union he is seconded to, and therefore the apparent assertion that NIPSA is an organisation wherein all members and...

... staff share the same political opinions isn't grounded in fact. Indeed, NIPSA have previously been criticised by this Tribunal on that basis that "the tribunal does not exist to provide a public forum...

... for the periodic ventilation of obscure and internecine disputes within Nipsa" (see Fleck & Mackel v NIPSA 43/15FET & 1503 IT)"

I wonder what complacency Lord Hope did warn of.

And whether he had any idea he would be quoted in such high drama some years hence!

Where's Diplock when you need him?

Brownie guide law I think

It's still difficult to divorce him from NIPSA, I'm aware of many workplace issues in my work where we're getting scant support from NIPSA.At what stage are you so closely linked to a union that it has to be assumed you're representing their values .
I'm assuming that's what the recusal is based around.

Maybe not, but he’s no doubt been bathed in indoctrination that terfs are evil etc for over a decade, plus I understand he’s one of the men at the top of the organisation taking that stance. Apparent bias is enough it seems - justice must be seen to be done.

Me neither: Being from a nationalist area in the 70s Troubles meant the oath to the Queen was a problem - I really wanted to go but I now realise that was from watching Blue Peter and Magpie Nobody I actually knew went to Brownies It was like Mallory Towers and Midnight Feasts a decade later - the stuff of fantasy rather than anybody's real life
Not anybody I ever met anyway
(They started catholic scouts later, but there were none near us in my day)

Nice use of the Tribunal's previous criticism of NIPSA there! (ETA I wonder whether they found it independently or got it from us??) Mind you, the respondent's argument does seem to gloss over the fact that this particular political disagreement is not incidental to the matter in front of the Tribunal but core to it.

From NW

"A fair-minded observer would understand that, to borrow the words of Mr Cousins [Mark Cousins - a respondent witness], Trade Unions are broad churches. Nowhere in the Claimant's submissions is there any evidence that Mr McKeown...

... Is hostile to sex realist views; or has publicly expressed any personal view on transgender issues.

To suggest that he is responsible for NIPSA policies on gender issues also demonstrates a lack of understanding of...

... how Trade Unions operate. No single person forms policy. Ordinarily there is a relevant subcommittee that will suggest policy after investigations and debate or policy can be formed or influenced by votes at a union's...

... conference that can be proposed by individual branches. The Respondent understands that NIPSA has a LGBTQ sub-committee that likely would have been responsible for policy. The Respondent is aware of no evidence that shows that Mr McKeown as a member of that sub-committee...

... the Respondent asserts this application has failed to demonstrate that the fair-minded and informed observer would have thought that there was real possibility of bias."

If the judge's position is not being challenged, that means DB's stated reason for departing from the room and the panel, i.e. health reasons is accepted as true.

Which means that the judge is incapable of spotting a big fat lie, or the judge repeated the big fat lie, or it wasn't a lie.

Me too. I learned to fence instead. Much better!

From NW

The Respondent then moves on to the request from the Claimant that if Mr McKeown is recused, the judge sits alone.

"the Tribunal is required to adhere to the rules as set out within the Industrial Tribunals and Fair Employment Tribunal (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020. Rule 53 states...

... final hearings shall be conducted by a tribunal comprising an employment judge and either one or two other members, in accordance with regulation...

The judges do not choose panel members & panel members do not express any interest whatsoever in sitting on any particular case.

Stop 🛑 showing off the BIGLY writing.

Michele has a BIGLY SCREEN.

I am just wee. Waaaaa.

"The contention on behalf of the Claimant is therefore that if you hold a political opinion, someone who holds a diametrically opposed opinion will necessarily be hostile to you...
... That is simply untrue. Many people can disagree on political matters and not be hostile to those with whom they disagree...

Normally I would agree, but on this subject, people (you know which people) seem to lose all sense of reality and perspective. The way they behave could be construed by some as unhinged.

Damn. I should have been kicked out of Brownies. Remembered it wrong.

I promise,
To do my best,
to do my duty,
to God the Queen and my country…etc”

I don’t think at the time I really processed whether I was promising both “to do my best” and “to do my duty”, or “to do my best to do my duty”.

From NW

The use of the word shall denotes a mandatory requirement. It is not open to the parties to agree to opt out of that requirement. This case cannot therefore proceed in front of the Employment Judge alone if this application is granted."

ENDS

Whereas I spent the time when everyone was at brownies breaking into the brewery yard to nick the money back pop bottles.

No single person forms policy

"I, personally wasn't in favour of our new policy."
"Me either. I thought you all wanted it."
"Us? No, we thought it was terrible. We did it because that's what you wanted."
"I didn't want that, how could you think I wanted that?"

The Abilene paradox at play.