Covid inquiry: Government seeks judicial review over order to hand over Johnson messages

government

through WhatsApp the lines between work and personal life are increasingly blurred, one of the reasons why officials refuse to deliver full

messages

to the undercover investigation that gave until 4 pm today to find the assets before Rishi Sunak, who promised integrity and professionalism. and accountability at all levels when he became prime minister became entrenched. We have been cooperating with the investigation for a long time. It is important that we learn the lessons of

covid

so that we are well prepared in future

government

s, very carefully considering the next steps, but he is confident in his position in and well, that's it, the deadline has already passed and the officials of the cabinet office behind me are still sitting on a wealth of raw material the

inquiry

wants to see both sides say they are right it looks like the courts will decide for sure moments later, in an unprecedented move, the government launched a

judicial

review

against her own investigation arguing that it was her and not the investigation into her presidency, Baroness Hallett should decide what material is unequivocally, as she said it was irrelevant.

I think it's actually quite a simple thing that the public

inquiry

has these powers, so even if the government takes it to

judicial

review

they are likely to lose that, as far as I can tell, I can't think of a time where a government has presented such a strong defense and the chair of the inquiry has threatened them with section 21 which mandates using those powers to demand material or threaten to find them if not, it all comes down to what precedent the delivery of the officials'

messages

would set. public and up to 40 ministers for future administrations with the legal power of the government.

The team also cites privacy and privacy concerns, as the man at the center of this says he neither needs nor wants. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday that he had

hand

ed over all of his messages to the Cabinet Office, ultimately these things will not be made public. They are simply being requested by the investigation that the government has set up and there doesn't seem to be any problem with that, so I'm not sure the government has really thought about this politically. I think they've probably been more process-driven. what politics because of course Boris Johnson himself has said you know I've given you everything, why don't you just

hand

it over and Boris Johnson will do it.

Not an opportunity to make life difficult for a Rishi Sunak, of course, and ironically in this. situation, it seems to be on the side of writing, no, but what is this? It turns out that Boris Johnson only handed over WhatsApp messages dating from May 2021 onwards when he received a new phone as for his notebooks, while the cabinet office only received them yesterday, he says. it takes time to rummage through and deliver them to research in batches. The former head of the government's legal department says this will not pile up. The transport is that she should see all this material and it could be relevant because she could show, for example. how ministers were using their time what other concerns they had at the time whether they were focusing enough on the pandemic etc., and that could only be seen by watching material that is not about the pandemic families of those who died during the pandemic Tonight I accused the government of a cover-up and cover-up.

Government lawyers say they have turned over more than 55,000 documents, cooperating fully with the investigation. This is a procedural battle that is now making for ugly politics. He now joins nudigate's Lord Savile, the former Supreme Court judge who chaired the public inquiry into Bloody Sunday. Thank you very much for coming to the program. I mean, there are a lot of issues here to resolve, so let's start with the question of trust in whom. Do you think you should decide what is relevant to research, government or public inquiry? Well, my view is that prima facie, at least, it is for the public inquiry that the president and, indeed, any other member of the court has a duty to conduct a thorough and complete investigation and if they fail in that duty, the result It is almost necessarily a huge waste of time and money and an incomplete investigation will of course immediately lead to accusations of a cover-up and the like, so I have great sympathy with Lady Hallett who has said that it is for her to decide what is relevant.

I think there has been confusion with another aspect, which is privacy. As far as I can see, there is no reason why the court can see all of these documents, those it considers irrelevant. It will never be published and will remain private. I guess what maybe the cabinet bills are saying that they don't trust, maybe you know the governor is saying that they just don't trust that personal, irrelevant material to stay private and stay out of the public. dominance maybe that's what it's about, well it may be, but that's a question of whether you feel able to trust Lady Hallett and her team if she doesn't have access, that's as good as it gets, so she'll cut you off if she does not have access.

Given all this material, does it make any sense for her to do the research well and for it to lead to that question? Because, um, trying to put myself in her position, if I was prevented from conducting a full and proper investigation, I might seriously consider resigning. Because she couldn't do an adequate job, would you advise her to do it? If you do not get all the material you need, it is not for me to advise Lady Hallett, who is an extraordinarily experienced and good judge, as to which way she should go. but it is a path that might be open to her if she felt that her efforts to conduct a thorough investigation were frustrated and just to be clear if we don't do it or if the investigation doesn't have access to everything it needs to form a picture full of what happened during

covid

, have you lost the public's confidence in generating that full picture?

Well, I think there is a very serious risk of doing exactly that if you don't look at everything relevant. and for that you also have to check a lot of irrelevant things, then you will not have done a complete job and if you do not do a complete job, as I already said, you will have wasted a lot of time and money and you immediately give rise to accusations of cover-up and similar things in the world of finance, for example. Traders have to be very strict about knowing their personal messages and their professional messages and they try to keep separate devices to keep those messages separated, it seems strange that an oil trader would be subject to sanctions, but a politician who decides to keep us locked up in our homes during covert activities is not okay.

I tend to agree with you, well that was easy, that was easy, um, Lord, I needed it, thank you. Thank you very much for coming to the program.