This latest GLP crowdfunder is unsurprisingly controversial. I’m not going to repeat the talking points for or against the merits of the legislation. There is a link to a pre-action letter which sets out the legal arguments. But how persuasive are they?

goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/tr… Supporters have no access to or indication of the privileged advice on the merits given by the lawyers in the case. And the GLP has not updated its records spreadsheet to show that its most recent crowdfunded judicial review, on voter ID, failed to get permission, as unarguable

Matthew Parris’s vision of euthanasia is one where people of full mental capacity and free of coercive influence will rationally choose to “check out early”. It’s a callous vision and it takes no account of frailty, folly, or loss of freedom in making a life or death decision

https://twitter.com/yuanyi_z/status/1773841805999485348

This case of a man who killed his mother and was indulgently sentenced for his offence was reported this week. I’m troubled by it. Imagine the same events happening in the moral universe Matthew Parris describes? The Sixth Commandment in shades of grey thetimes.co.uk/article/man-wh…

The one thing this isn’t is charitable. The crowdfunding page names no lawyers, but describes Chris Packham himself as the case owner. He is not a charity. There is no link to any pre-litigation correspondence or draft grounds of claim, or statement of how a surplus will be used

https://twitter.com/joyce_stack/status/1731653634805379254

This link is more informative and makes it clear that there are lawyers acting in the case. But why does Chris Packham, who owes his public prominence to work for the BBC, a public service broadcaster funded by licence payers, need to crowdfund for this litigation?

https://twitter.com/leighday_law/status/1731688596623495671

A new litigation crowdfunder for a “class action” on behalf of “all” 1950s born women affected by state pension age increases. This appears to be a successor project to a “CEDAW people’s tribunal” which followed the failed crowdfunded #backto60 litigation

crowdjustice.com/case/group-cla…
The litigation prospectus is very vague, and the legal structure and identity of individuals responsible the organisation behind it is opaque. If, as it appears to be, it is a successor organisation to BackTo60, prospective donors should know its history thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions…

Congratulations to @AllianceLGB who have now announced that they have won the case and defeated the challenge to their charitable status brought by @Mermaids_Gender with the support of @GoodLawProject. I look forward to reading the judgment. This is a good outcome for charity law

https://twitter.com/barbararich_law/status/1676621127135682560

Statement from @mermaids_gender which explains that Mermaids’ challenge failed on the issue of standing, but that the tribunal was divided on the issue of whether or not LGBA was entitled to be registered as a charity

Judgment of First Tier Tribunal in @Mermaids_Gender challenge to decision of Charity Commission to register @AllianceLGB as a charity to be published, after v long delay, at 10am on Thursday 6 July. A significant case on standing to appeal such a decision, and on the issues 1/2 Evidence heard as long ago as September 2022, and legal arguments in November. Unfair on the participants, especially LGBA, to have to wait so long for a decision. Worth revisiting the legal arguments, published here
and here
https://t.co/rIb3LRWZGs 2/2lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
mermaidsuk.org.uk/wp-content/upl…

The Court of Appeal has ruled on costs in Banks v Cadwalladr: Cadwalladr to pay her own costs and 60% of Banks’s. Will money raised by crowdfunding be sufficient to meet that liability? It looks unlikely on current figures
gofundme.com/f/democracy-th… and crowdjustice.com/case/support-m… The Court of Appeal order directs Carole Cadwalladr

1. To pay 60% of Banks’s trial costs, £400,000 on account, rest to be assessed
2. To repay £790,634 trial costs already paid on account by him to her after trial
3. To pay 1/3 of costs in Court of Appeal, assessed at £52,000

The GLP’s failed application for permission to seek judicial review of the Met’s investigation of “Partygate” was foreshadowed by the last judge who dealt with it. He was “ troubled” by absence of focus on warnings against courts interfering with conduct of police investigations There isn’t a published judgment or order that I have seen, explaining today’s refusal. But it’s unsurprising, if also disappointing, to see how readily supporters leap for conspiracist accusations about courts and judges, in the absence of any explanation to them of this point

Mermaids v LGBA - cross-examination of a Mr Roberts, witness for Mermaids by Akua Reindorf for LGBA. This question and answer is at the heart of Mermaids’ case, seeking to appeal the Charity Commission’s decision to register LGBA as a charity

https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets/status/1569263442686607362

Link to nested threads about the appeal, in particular on Mermaids’ standing to argue the appeal at all. The evidence which is being heard this week is relevant both to standing and to the appeal itself, if the tribunal decides they do have standing to argue it

https://twitter.com/BarbaraRich_law/status/1568161471258836994

The hearing of this case starts today. It is a single hearing on the question of Mermaids’s standing to appeal the registration of LGBA as a charity and on the appeal itself if they do have standing. Standing is a serious issue, not a technicality. It may foreseeably go to appeal

https://twitter.com/barbararich_law/status/1545683790508527617

TLDR - standing is about eligibility to argue a case. Mermaids must show that its legal rights are or may be affected by the decision to register LGBA as a charity. Ideological opposition to a charity’s aims or work isn’t enough

The Battle of Trevalga - the proposed sale of a Cornish village by the trustees of the 1951 will of Gerald Curgenven and the villagers' opposition to it. I have written about the life of Gerald Curgenven and the legal arguments over his will trust
abarbararich.medium.com/the-battle-of-… This is a long read. TLDR

Gerald Curgenven owned and lived at Trevalga in his lifetime

In his 1951 will he asked his trustees to
- continue to manage Trevalga as it had been in his lifetime
- pay surplus income to Marlborough, his old school
- if they sold, to choose charities

I’m glad that Allison Bailey succeeded in her discrimination claim, but sorry that this outcome does not reflect well on some in our profession. Barristers should not have discriminated against a colleague or allowed personal views to affect a process which should have been fair Although the tribunal found that it was a reasonable step to initially seek outline help from a QC on the application of @barstandards then new social media guidance, this became an unfair process. I think it would have been better to let the BSB decide for itself

Whenever the name of Anne Frank is trending, it is because of some act of dishonour to her memory. This UK charity established in her name equivocates about a person it associated with, whether through a failure of due diligence, or insouciance. Compare her views with its values

https://twitter.com/AnneFrankTrust/status/1548423365064396805

There’s an echo here of the Royal Court, and of @HMD_UK arranging for Battersea Power Station to light its chimneys purple on Holocaust Memorial Day. Organisations which make this sort of blunder should take a searching look at themselves and make changes to do better in future

I wanted to wait until after judgment was published in her case before retweeting this thread from @mforstater. We barristers have strong and divergent opinions and important but not unlimited rights of freedom of speech. I think some of these comments at least test those limits

https://twitter.com/mforstater/status/1529040123207221248

As anyone who follows me knows, I oppose the ready resort to professional regulatory complaints for differences of opinion or for political ends. The best regulation is self-regulation and open discussion of what is or isn’t proper discourse for identifiable professional people

On litigation crowdfunding, a company used by Carole Cadwalladr for this purpose has been voluntarily dissolved HT @GuidoFawkes. As public records show, notice of dissolution was filed on 12 January, but donations were still being solicited on 14 January 2022 I don’t make or endorse any specific allegations of illegality, but these records clearly raise some questions about the use of this crowdfunding vehicle after filing an application for voluntary dissolution. Any company assets on dissolution belong to the Crown as bona vacantia

A short thread about litigation crowdfunding, following comments on this crowdfunder appearing in my mentions the other day.

Litigation crowdfunding is where access to justice, public understanding of the law and the power of the internet and social media meet

https://twitter.com/kathbum/status/1513138128135016450

Contributors to litigation crowdfunding have no rights to any specific information about the case at all, usually do not see any confidential advice on its merits, have no say in litigation strategy and no share in any rewards of the litigation, if the claim is for damages

How can the director of the Good Law Project claim that the Prime Minister broke the law by failing to comply with the public sector equality duty when the court found he played no part in these two appointments? See paragraph 135 of the judgment at bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/… The Runnymede Trust’s claims of breach of public sector equality duty in the process for these two appointments succeeded, but the claim by the Good Law Project failed in its entirety (paragraph 126), as did the “cronyism” grounds, of indirect discrimination and apparent bias

One thing this article doesn’t touch on is the relationship between crowdfunding lawfare and public understanding of the law, and what results their contributions might achieve, or have achieved for them, or others. Crowdfunded lawfare is unregulated and very easily oversold

https://twitter.com/oliviajhartley/status/1485923728689184770

Cases seeking vindication of individual rights eg “I lost my job” are much easier to understand than public law cases, where even a successful claim often results in no more than a declaration. From what I read, many people mistakenly equate such declarations with criminal guilt

.@TwitterSupport @TwitterSafety @vijaya think this threat, one of numerous similarly hostile tweets from the account of a registered community interest company @CICRegulator does not break its rules on abuse, targeted harassment or misuse of private information. You may disagree Thanks to everyone who responded to or reported this. It has now disappeared, although other hostile and malicious tweets remain on that account and those that engage with it. There was an incident at my home last September and a sinister tweet which may or may not relate to it

The true facts of this story appear to be that Charleston, a museum, has a legal right for its staff and visitors to use the driveway, but the owner of the driveway has no obligation to improve its condition. The museum trustees were awarded the funds. The landowner is irrelevant Extracts from the application documents HT @GreatStrides65 showing that the state of the driveway was discouraging repeat visits and limiting potential events and festivals at the museum

Quoted in this story on inaccuracies in the book, The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes, in today’s Times (£) thetimes.co.uk/article/battle…

https://twitter.com/barbararich_law/status/1467509288876838919

And in this story on The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes in the Daily Mail dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…