Labour Activists for Justice – update on costs

Update on costs

The hearing on costs was held on Monday 12th July.

The costs were fixed in a summary assessment at £110k, the judge refusing our request for a detailed assessment.  This is 70% of the costs claimed by the Labour Party; at the preliminary hearing – when we won – the summary assessment awarded us half of our costs only.  Moreover, our legal team had incurred approximately half of the Party’s costs during the same period.

There was one comfort in that the Judge  did not pick up on the Labour Party’s attempt to yet again to treat the claimants as disreputable rebels.  We are being treated as the enemy of the Party, not members seeking to save the party by achieving procedural fairness and improved disciplinary systems.  The Party had attempted to swing the case against us because the LA4J group were continuing to crowdfund and to show concern for injustices!   So we are broke but continue to challenge them!

And materially Justice Butcher rejected the Party’s request for a fourteen day payment period. We asked for 28 days; he ordered payment within 21 days.

So we still have an urgent need for funding to pay these costs. Please donate if you can and share widely.

Comments (6)

  • rc says:

    By-elections happen regularly: the next one I know is in Dover. I don’t know what line the Labour candidate takes on this (and wider) persecution of comrades whose only offence is reservations about the apartheid state originally conceived and brought into being by Ben Gurion. It would be hard to canvass or even leaflet with enthusiasm – or perhaps at all – for an active or passive supporter of ethnic cleansing. Even if there are few Palestinians in Dover to hound and dispossess, there are always Travellers to illegalize – as per signs displayed by Ealing Council..

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  • rc says:

    A Butcher indeed – but an intimate involvement with the repressive machinery of the state discourages any civilized approach. John Griffith’s Politics of the (English) Judiciary is still relevant.
    I take it this was an entirely judge-driven verdict as well as costs-decision. Jury trials and hearings are under ever greater threat – Blair and the Blairites as big a menace as Thatcher etc.
    But at least Butcher does not prate about progress etc to cloak his actions…

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  • John Bowley says:

    Our legal system is institutionally for rich people only and largely populated with those intent on maintaining basic unfairness (and becoming rich on it).

    The disproportionately costly English legal system is not really open to all.

    Apart from a biased judge, as is usual in the English legal system, I think that a fundamental reason for the rejection of the complaints against the Labour Party, by the group of obviously deplorably mistreated members, is that, in English law, the Labour Party is a private members club and is outside any law with regard to its members. I do not understand it either.

    Though all horribly unfair, I have again contributed to this cause via JVL
    Please, all do this, to show our solidarity with our colleagues.

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  • John Bowley says:

    I have checked more and since read that Mr Justice Christopher Butcher QC is a Commercial Judge. In a Commercial Court, I think. I question whether this was appropriate for a fundamentally political case.

    Apparently, the court, in practice the judge, I believe, relied upon the official version, as this judge would have viewed it, presented by the Labour Party, largely ignoring or dismissing evidence to the contrary.

    Commercial Judge Butcher’s experience, competence and breadth of mind for deciding upon this political dispute is legitimately questionable.

    Are our maltreated colleagues considering an Appeal?

    It will mean yet more expense, which would be supported by the rest of us, but it could lead to a fairer outcome.

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  • John Bowley says:

    Sir Martin Moore-Bick who heads the Grenfell Tower Fire Disaster Inquiry had a career in commercial law and particularly in shipping law.

    Though the Grenfell Inquiry employs a huge bunch of barristers/solicitors.
    And just one building designer.

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  • Margaret West says:

    It is interesting to note that the Judge in question
    made his decision on Commercial Grounds.

    I think if a Commercial Organisation behaved to
    its employees the way the Labour Party is behaving
    to its members they would be universally condemned.
    (I guess it would in any case be unlawful.)

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Comments are now closed.