Thread by @allthecitizens

BREAKING: High Court rules Michael Gove acted unlawfully.

It got us thinking about how many times we’ve seen similar headlines since 2019, and yet nothing changes. Here are some of the big ones. THREAD:

Count 1: Today’s win for @GoodLawProject finds Gove broke the law in issuing the Public First deal.

As @GoodLawProject @allthecitizens @BylineTimes @OpenDemocracy have highlighted, gov pandemic procurement has been swamped in “institutionalised cronyism”
goodlawproject.org/update/gove-br…

Count 2: This is the second successful judicial review on procurement that @GoodLawProject has brought against the govt. The first found that Matt Hancock had also broken the law in failing to comply with the govt’s own transparency policy
goodlawproject.org/update/the-jud…

Count 3: Gove’s Cabinet Office came under fire yesterday when @OpenDemocracy won a court case against them for “blacklisting” FOI requests from journalists, with the judge referring to a “profound lack of transparency”
opendemocracy.net/en/freedom-of-…

Freedom Of Information requests represent one of the most effective direct means for journalists, activists, and citizens to be able to communicate with the government, and ask important questions. Without it, it would become almost impossible for the press to do our job.

Count 4: In Sept 2019, the High Court ruled Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen on proroguing parliament to be “unlawful” theguardian.com/law/2019/sep/2…

Count 5: In May 2020, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick accepted that his approval of a £1bn Isle of Dogs housing development project was “unlawful” but denied any bias
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

Count 6: Priti Patel has also recently come under scrutiny in court hearings relating to four linked cases concerning the Home Secretary’s distribution of funds “without legal authority”, which the judge referred to as “extremely troubling”
theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/m…

Count 7: More recently, Patel faced calls to resign over the Home Office’s decision to house asylum seekers in “inhumane” and “unsafe” conditions at Napier Barracks in Kent. The process for selection was deemed “flawed and unlawful”
news.sky.com/story/covid-19…

Count 8: These challenges to Patel come in the wake of her being cleared of bullying charges by Boris Johnson, despite having broken the ministerial code, which then prompted a further legal challenge against Johnson from the FDA Union.
theguardian.com/politics/2020/…

Count 9: Johnson himself was also found to have misled Parliament in March over the release of Covid-19 contracts, following the first of @GoodLawProject legal challenges, when the judge found his claim that all contracts were “on the record” to be untrue
goodlawproject.org/update/johnson…

Count 10 (plus): Johnson has been accused of breaking the code on other occasions; failing to declare joint ownership of a London property, texts with James Dyson, and for his flat refurb, where he was controversially found not to have breached protocol.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

Count 11: While the findings from ethics advisor Lord Geidt have been questioned by some, Geidt did find Matt Hancock once again broke ministerial code in a “technical” and “minor” way, not declaring shares in a contract winning company owned by his sister
theguardian.com/politics/2021/…

With several court cases still ongoing, @allthecitizens will continue to document instances of flagrant disregard for the law and parliamentary norms by this government…