A JUDGE HAD NO WORKERS RIGHTS
Claire Gilham was a district judge in Warrington. She spent her days dealing with some of the most difficult civil and family cases in the North West. People going through divorce, debt, custody battles. The kind of work that matters.
The courts she worked in were a mess. Unsafe buildings. Overworked staff. Budget cuts so deep that basic safety was gone. Violent people in courtrooms with no security. She even received death threats.
She reported it. Formally. In writing. To the people above her.
Their response was remarkable. They told her the problems she was describing were not really problems. They were just her personal working style. She was then bullied and loaded with extra work for daring to speak up.
So she did what any reasonable person would do. She took the Ministry of Justice
@MoJGovUK to an employment tribunal.
Here is where it gets truly absurd.
A judge in England has no whistleblower protection. None. The law that protects workers who speak out about wrongdoing did not cover judges because judges are classified as office-holders, not workers.
The person sitting in court enforcing the law for everyone else had fewer legal rights than almost anyone sitting in front of her.
She lost at tribunal. She lost at the Court of Appeal. She started a crowdfunding campaign just to keep the case alive. Most people would have stopped.
She did not stop.
In October 2019, after seven years,
@UKSupremeCourt ruled in her favour. Unanimously. Five judges, zero dissent. The law was rewritten to protect judges who blow the whistle. And the ruling went further, helping workers across the public and private sectors who had been denied the same protection.
One judge. No institutional backing. Fighting the entire Ministry of Justice with a crowdfunding page. She changed the law for everyone.
@guardian @BBCNews @lawgazette @thetimes @UKSupremeCourt - Gilham v Ministry of Justice [2019] UKSC 44