Speaking freely, as a lawyer
just got a bit easier
In August my professional regulator, the Bar Standards Board, sanctioned me for a tweet. An appeal panel has now overturned the BSB’s decision and confirmed the importance of political speech under human rights law. The panel concluded that a tweet that may cause offence, or which could promote hostility towards others as a group, provides no basis for interfering with the right of a barrister, or any other member of a regulated profession, to speak politically.
In place of those low thresholds for interfering with political speech the appeal panel concluded that 'at the very least, the relevant speech would have to be "seriously offensive" or "seriously discreditable".' And even then 'there would have to be a close consideration of the facts to establish that the speech had gone beyond the wide latitude allowed for the expression of a political belief'. Moreover, regulators and others should be on guard against those who actually object 'to the political belief or message being espoused' but who claim to object to 'the manner in which that belief or message was being delivered.' This ruse is invariably deployed by the woke practitioners of cancel culture who offer-up their thin skins, rather than their considered arguments.
The appeal panel also concluded that the BSB’s Social Media Guidance, which did not recognise the importance of political speech under human rights law, set the threshold for interfering with speech too low. And that the reference in the Guidance to comments being ‘considered offensive by others’ provided an unlawful basis for interfering with political speech.
Without free speech there is no democracy. But in the professions, it is frequently curtailed by regulators and wokesters who seek to censor through cancellation. Because these right thinking people claim to know better, they use their status to prevent the public from hearing a broad spectrum of political views - particularly on culture war issues that pit the left against the majority of ordinary people. As these regulators well know, for every person sanctioned or cancelled, there are countless others who are chilled into not speaking their mind. This process erodes democracy.
For exercising my right to speak freely, I was expelled last January by my chambers, Cornerstone Barristers. In August I was cleared by the Bar Standards Board (‘BSB’) for the tweet that prompted that expulsion. The BSB concluded that that tweet was merely an expression of my ‘personal political opinion on a piece of legislation (the Equality Act)’. This was obvious to all except those who relish cancelling, denouncing and expelling, so as to avoid conversing, debating and explaining.
But the BSB - like the playground bully seeking to save face - found another tweet on which to impose a secret ‘administrative sanction’, namely a we-are-watching-you warning and a £500 fine. This meant that despite concluding that I had not committed any professional misconduct the BSB would nevertheless sanction me - for crimes against a woke ideology. I wrote about the importance of standing up for free speech on the TCW website.
The BSB no doubt hoped I would quietly accept the sanction, which the public was not supposed to know about, and thereafter conform to the regulator’s boundaries on political speech, as determined at Islington dinner parties. But I didn’t. I went public and forced the BSB to hold my appeal hearing in public.
The appeal panel ruling has confirmed that my fundamental democratic right of free speech was abridged by the BSB imposed sanction. The panel has set aside the sanction, but, more importantly, confirmed that regulators and others who seek to infringe the right to speak freely, do so at risk of acting unlawfully.
The issue was reported by the press in:
The Times: Barrister cleared over ‘Muslims are killing free speech’ comment
Daily Mail online: Sacked ‘anti-woke’ barrister wins appeal against £500 fine
The Law Society Gazette: Tweeting barrister wins appeal over £500 fine
Legal Cheek: Barrister sanctioned over tweet about Muslims wins appeal
Legal Futures: Barrister sanctioned for “offensive” Muslim tweet wins appeal
Spiked, Emma Webb: Are lawyers free to speak their minds?
Well done, you.