Transparency – Page 13 – The Law and Policy Blog

Why a production company was not allowed to pre-record and broadcast the coronavirus procurement case – a guided tour of the court’s reasoning

20th February 2021

Physician, heal thyself – proverb.

Yesterday the high court handed down its decision in the challenge to the government’s lack of transparency in respect of coronavirus-related procurement.

The court held that the government should have been more transparent.

This blog will examine that judgment once it can be properly digested – but in the meantime, there are some paragraphs of the judgment are interesting in and of themselves.

These paragraphs set out why the court – in a case about transparency and the public interest during the pandemic – refused an application for a production company to pre-record the hearing for broadcast under the very legislation that allows the courts to be more transparent during the pandemic.

Which is a little bit ironic.

Don’t you think?

The court’s reasoning on why the hearing could not be pre-recorded for broadcast is set out at the end of the judgment in a section with the title “Postscript: recording and broadcasting”.

The reasoning is worth going through step-by-step so one can understand the limits of public transparency of the courts when dealing with cases about the public transparency of the government.

(Please note that some of the mild teasing of the court below should not be taken too earnestly.)

We start at paragraph 161 of the judgment:

‘161. Prior to the hearing, the Administrative Court Office indicated to the parties that, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hearing of this claim would take place remotely using a video-conferencing platform. The Claimants invited me to give permission for a television production company to record and re-broadcast the proceedings in the interests of open justice. They made written submissions in support of that application. The Secretary of State resisted it, on jurisdictional grounds. I refused the application, indicating that I would give my reasons in writing at the same time as the judgment, unless the application was renewed orally at the hearing. The application was not renewed orally. These are my reasons for refusing it on paper.’

This is a useful reminder that judicial reasoning does not exist in a vacuum: judicial reasoning is about whether a court should do or not do a particular thing – usually whether to make an order.

Here, the reasoning is set out not because Mr Justice Chamberlain is going on some frolic of his own, volunteering his opinions on behalf of the judiciary of England and Wales on whether high court proceedings ought to be recorded and broadcast, but in response to a particular application by the claimants.

The government resisted that application – but not on its merits (though no doubt the government would not relish such proceedings being freely available).

The application was instead resisted on ‘jurisdictional grounds’ – that is that such an order would not be open to any high court judge regardless of the merits.

You will also note that the judge mentions the application was ‘in the interests of open justice’ – and you will see that in nothing that follows does the judge deny that proposition.

The judge refused the application, and so what follows in this post tells why the judge made that decision – and why he did not (or could not) make any other decision on that application.

And the post ends by averring that this was an opportunity missed by the high court and such an application could have been granted on terms.

Next is paragraph 162:

‘Section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 imposes a general prohibition on the taking of photographs in court and on the publication of such photographs. This prohibition extends to video recordings: R v Loveridge [2001] EWCA Crim 973, [2001] 2 Cr App R 29. Exceptions have been provided by and under statute. None applies to proceedings in the Administrative Court. Section 41 therefore constrains the inherent jurisdiction of the court: R (Spurrier) v Secretary of State for Transport [2019] EWHC 528 (Admin), [2019] EMLR 16.’

The judge starts at, well, the starting point.

Taking photographs in court and publishing the photographs is generally prohibited – which means it is generally a criminal offence to breach the prohibition.

The prohibition is set out in a statute that is nearly one hundred years old, the Criminal Justice Act 1925, section 41(1) of which provides:

‘No person shall—

‘(a) take or attempt to take in any court any photograph, or with a view to publication make or attempt to make in any court any portrait or sketch, of any person, being a judge of the court or a juror or a witness in or a party to any proceedings before the court, whether civil or criminal; or

‘(b) publish any photograph, portrait or sketch taken or made in contravention of the foregoing provisions of this section or any reproduction thereof [… ]’

But wait: the proposal is not to photograph inside the court – indeed the hearing is not even taking place inside a physical court room – so how is this prohibition relevant?

The judge explains that section 41(1) has been extended to also mean video recordings, even though such things did not exist as such in 1925 and the section does not expressly mention video recordings.

Unfortunately, the 2001 decision which the judge cites as being authority for section 41(1) extending to video recording – and thereby extending the scope of a criminal offence – is not itself easily found in the public domain.

The nearest one will find in a reasonable internet search is this brief case note – which tells us, unrevealingly, that the court of appeal decided an ‘appellant’s convictions were safe despite the police having unlawfully videotaped them at court and adduced the evidence of a facial mapping expert to compare that video with CCTV footage’.

How a member of the public could join that dot to what the court here is saying about section 41(1) applying to video recording is not plain – and so we have to take the judge’s word for section 41(1) prohibiting video broadcasts and recordings even though section 41(1) does not explicitly say so.

(Yes, I know one can access the 2001 judgment through subscription services – but this blog and and what it describes is an exercise in the public understanding of law using public domain materials.)

The judge then notes there are general exceptions to this general prohibition – see here – but tells us none of those exceptions apply.

As such he concludes section 41(1) binds the court’s ‘inherent jurisdiction’ – that regardless that the power of the high court is very mighty indeed, statute is even mightier.

And of course, the judgment he cites for this very important principle is also not (easily) found in the public domain either.

So again we have to take the judge’s word for it.

Welcome to open justice.

We now come to paragraph 163, which deals with how the courts have been specially allowed to conduct video proceedings during the current pandemic:

163. The Coronavirus Act 2020 inserted provisions into the Courts Act 2003 about “proceedings conducted wholly as video proceedings”. The first provision inserted was s. 85A(1), headed “Enabling the public to see and hear proceedings”. It empowers the court to direct that such proceedings may be broadcast (i.e. live-streamed). It also empowers the court to direct that the proceedings be recorded, but only “for the purpose of enabling the court to keep an audio-visual record of the proceedings”. Parliament could have authorised recording for broadcast, but did not.

Here the judge is describing what the law says – but also, by implication, what the law is not saying.

The law is set out in a section inserted into the 2003 Act by coronavirus legislation, which provides:

‘Section 85

‘If the court directs that proceedings are to be conducted wholly as video proceedings, the court—

‘(a) may direct that the proceedings are to be broadcast (in the manner specified in the direction) for the purpose of enabling members of the public to see and hear the proceedings;

”(b) may direct that a recording of the proceedings is to be made (in the manner specified in the direction) for the purpose of enabling the court to keep an audio-visual record of the proceedings […]’

Section 85 looks promising for the applicants – and the exception under sub-section (a) looks as if it could cover the envisaged broadcast.

On the face of it sub-section 85(a) could be read so to permit the pre-recording and broadcast as envisaged in the application – subject to any specifications of the court

(In my view, had parliament intended that such broadcasts could only ever be done simultaneously with the hearing then parliament would have said so, but it did not.)

But the judge dismisses this possible reading with a deft gloss in parentheses that the broadcast exception only means ‘live-streaming’ – but note, the relevant law does not explicitly mention live-streaming – just broadcasting.

And, of course, many things that are broadcast go through a pre-recorded stage.

There is not a rigid broadcast/record distinction in media production.

The judge decides the envisaged project would fall instead within sub-section 85(b), and he avers that any such recording can only be for the purpose of judicial record keeping.

(It would seem to me to be at least arguable that a direction would have been possible under sub-section 85(a) containing specifications as to the manner of how the proceedings should be broadcast – otherwise, it would ignore the fact that most broadcasts necessarily go through a pre-recording stage.)

As the court decides neither of the coronavirus-related exceptions apply under section 85, then the general prohibition stands.

The judge then, in paragraph 164, sets out the criminal offence that parliament created in the coronavirus legislation in respect of certain unauthorised broadcasts and recordings:

‘164. The second provision inserted was s. 85B, headed “Offences of recording or transmission in relation to broadcasting”. This makes it an offence for a person to make an unauthorised recording or unauthorised transmission of an image or sound which is being broadcast in accordance with a direction under s. 85A. Section 86B(6) provides that a recording or transmission is “unauthorised” unless it is (a) authorised by a direction under section 85A, (b) otherwise authorised (generally or specifically) by the court in which the proceedings concerned are being conducted, or (c) authorised (generally or specifically) by the Lord Chancellor.”

This means that if a hearing is live-streamed in accordance with an order, it will be an offence for anyone to record and re-broadcast such footage.

The judge then deals with what appears to be an ingenious attempt by the Claimants to get around the statutory regime using the wording of the criminal offence:

‘165. The Claimants relied on s. 86B(6)(b). They argued that it would make no sense unless the court had power to authorise recording or transmission other than under s. 85A. This is topsy turvy statutory construction. Both the heading and operative language of s. 86B make plain that it is concerned with the creation of an offence and with the delineation of its scope. The function of s. 86B(6)(b) is to make clear that no offence would be committed by a person who records or transmits footage pursuant to an authorisation by the court. That is not surprising. One would not expect something authorised by a court to give rise to criminal liability.’

Topsy turvy.

Of course, the language of ‘make plain’ and ‘made clear’ in law (as in politics) usually means that the thing being described is not actually plain nor clear.

And it would seem that the applicants do have a point here (if a weak one) as the relevant section does appear to acknowledge orders being made other than under the coronavirus legislation.

But such an acknowledgment does not, by itself, create jurisdiction to make an order – the applicants still need to show the legal basis for their application, and they did not convince the court that they had one.

Ingenious legal submissions almost always fail.

Having asserted that the relevant law is ‘plain’ and ‘clear’ the judge, of course, has to explain the law yet further, and he does so in paragraph 166:

‘166. Nothing in s. 86B purports to define or expand the scope of the court’s powers to authorise broadcast and recording. Those powers are set out in s. 86A. That provision would not have been drafted as it is if the intention were to empower the court to permit recording other than for the purposes of record-keeping.’

Of course, if the law was actually ‘plain’ and ‘clear” then the judge would not need to keep on explaining it, as the law would, well, be plain and clear.

And again the court overlooks the fact that most broadcasting requires a pre-recording stage, and parliament did not expressly limit broadcasting to simultaneous live-streaming.

Paragraph 167 then sets out that there is a general prohibition on pre-recording for the purposes of broadcast and that this prohibition stands in this particular case:

‘167. There is accordingly no power to permit proceedings in the Administrative Court to be recorded for the purposes of broadcast, even when the proceedings are conducted wholly as video proceedings.’

In other words: the court would not be able to make such an order even if it wanted to do so.

It is a question of jurisdiction, not the merits of the application.

The judge has therefore not decided against making the order as such, but has decided that he does not have the power to do so.

But what about open justice?

For just as the roles of judges, lawyers and parties are now performed online during the pandemic, what about those who would sit in the public gallery?

In the last paragraph of the judgment, the judge explains how this important issue is addressed:

‘168. This does not generally, and did not in this case, prevent the public from having access to proceedings conducted wholly by video in the Administrative Court. In line with the Court’s usual practice, the cause list published on the day before the hearing included an email address through which any member of the public could apply for access to the online platform. All 19 who applied were able to access and watch and listen to the proceedings in this way. The proceedings were therefore at least as accessible as they would have been if held in court.’

This is a good point, well made by the judge.

Anyone who wanted to see the proceedings was able to do so, in the same way a person can go along and sit in a court if they want to do so.

But.

‘Open justice’ does not mean openness only to the very limited extent of the time, effort and commitment of a determined stranger to sit in a far-away public gallery.

The high court should seize the opportunity provided by the coronavirus legislation to make its work more visible to the public generally – especially in public interest cases arising out of the government’s response to the pandemic.

The public gallery is just one manifestation of the principle of open justice, but it is not its only standard nor its only template.

That is, to invoke a phrase, topsy turvy.

The mild teasing of the court above does have a serious point.

In public interest cases where the hearing comprises lawyer-on-lawyer action (and not any witness evidence) there is no good reason for the proceedings not to be more widely available.

This is not to suggest a free-for-all – such broadcasts can be done subject to the specifications of the court.

But a properly produced and professionally edited version of a public interest court case would be a boon for the public understanding of the law.

It is possible to read section 85A as permitting such a broadcast and, if so, the high court did have the jurisdiction.

Another judge may have taken a more robust approach to the opportunity provided by the coronavirus legislation for such a broadcast to be permitted.

It was a pity that such a production was not possible here.

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Why not every discussion about the Crown should be just another debate about its abolition – and what Netflix’s ‘The Crown’ gets right

13th February 2021

This week the Guardian has run a sequence of pieces about the right of the Queen and the Prince of Wales in respect of proposed legislation that affects their private interests.

See here, here, and here.

Such a right is, as this blog averred, unacceptable and should be abolished (and indeed could be easily abolished without even an act of parliament).

But even mentioning this particular wrong triggered the usual broader reaction: ‘Let’s abolish the monarchy while we are at it’.

And so a particular point becomes the most general of demands, and in the end – as always – nothing will be done about either of them.

This is, in live action, the constitutional utopianism recently described by this blog (here and here).

It is similar to what happens with any attempt to highlight or expose a constitutional wrong by the government.

There such an exposure or highlight triggers the general demand for a written (that is, codified) constitution.

And again, nothing ends up being done to address, still less remedy, the specific problem.

(I have set out in this provocatively titled Prospect column, why we should stop talking about about a written constitution.)

These general reactions are not so much ways of thinking about constitutional issues but a way of not thinking about them.

You hear or read of a problem, type out your demand in a tweet or other comment, bit ‘enter’ and gain a ‘like’ or even a retweet, and: job done!

But the job is not done.

In fact, nothing gets done.

And the constitutional abuses carry on as before.

Of course, there is a strong if not compelling case – in principle – for republicanism in any mature polity.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

Supreme executive power should derive from a mandate from the masses, and not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

(Ahem.)

Against the strong if not compelling case for republicanism as a matter of principle, however, there is a plausible case as a matter of practice for the monarchy in the instance of the United Kingdom.

This practical argument is not so much about what powers the Crown has – but what powers it prevents others from having.

In particular, the office of prime minister has few direct and express powers (and indeed there are relatively few mentions of ‘prime minister’ in statute or case law), meaning that almost all exercises of prime ministerial power are negotiated and are thereby contestable.

Even the convention that Crown will do whatever the prime minister ‘advises’ was shown to be open to challenge by the supreme court of the United Kingdom in the second Miller case.

These checks and balances on ultimate executive power are weak – but the challenge for any republican is that they should show how any replacement to the monarchy would also have checks and balances.

For a solution to the problem of the monarchy that would mean even more unchecked and imbalanced executive powers would not be an improvement – at least not from any liberal perspective.

In constitutional theory the Crown is the ultimate basis of not only executive power but legislative power (the ‘Queen-in-Parliament’) and even the judiciary (the Queen-in-her-courts).

This can lead to pleasing if not amusing events such as an application for judicial review brought in the name of the Crown (‘Regina‘) in respect of the exercise of the royal prerogative to prorogue parliament so that there can be a new Queen’s speech.

(That was the constitutional essence of the second Miller case.)

An understanding of the Crown therefore is essential to understanding at least the theory of the current constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom.

And as the ‘United Kingdom’ label on the tin suggests, the Crown is the single most significant unifying factor in the current political union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

If and when there is a republic then what replaces the Crown will also have to function as this all-purpose constitutional glue.

This is not to say abolition of the monarchy should not be done – but, like Brexit, there will be an awful lot of work to do just to duplicate current arrangements under a new label.

And, again like Brexit, the question has to be whether it would be really worth all the time and effort, regardless of your position as a matter of principle.

In the meantime, the powers of the Crown – both in respect of the public powers of the royal prerogative and the private powers such as the Queen’s Consent – still need anxious scrutiny.

That there is a broader question of whether there should be a republic should not mean any narrower questions should be disregarded.

The one thing that the Netflix series The Crown gets right – even if it gets a lot wrong in respect of historical detail – is that it conveys that the monarchy is an ongoing work-in-progress.

The Crown adapts, and it seeks to avert or survive crises with a combination of stubbornness and reinventions: an institution highly alert to its own precariousness.

And those who want to limit the misuses of the power of the Crown (and what is done in its name by the prime minister and others) should adopt a similar but opposite approach.

For keeping the powers of the monarchy properly in check is also an ongoing work-in-progress.

And in the happy event that we do one day become a republic, then keeping the powers of any presidency would also be an an ongoing work-in-progress.

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Does the Handforth Parish Council viral video show that local government should be abolished? Or does it show that all local government meetings should be virtual?

6th February 2021

The interest in that Handforth Parish Council video is extraordinary.

Even at this blog, yesterday’s post has already had more views than any other post here has had in total over the last five years – with the single exception of the post that explained Article 50 the day after the shock of the referendum result.

(Yesterday’s post even attracted a commenter who, without any apparent irony, described Jackie Weaver’s actions as ‘the worst kind of Fascism’ – and one can only wonder what they then thought when their comment was binned rather than published.)

Without doubt the video has added for some to what used to to be called the ‘gaiety of the nation’ – though for others it was a less cheerful public illustration of the abuses, disruption and misconduct in such meetings that is usually hidden from view.

But as interest fades and new memes come along, what – if anything – is the more general significance of the story of that parish council meeting?

One problem of local government is lack of interest.

People, it would seem, can only bear so much democracy.

The turnout in local government is lower than parliamentary elections.

And – as with political parties – the fewer people who are engaged, the more unrepresentative are those who stay involved.

When those unrepresentative representatives have actual powers then this means it is more likely that bad decisions will be made instead of good decisions.

One response to this observation will be that the solution is to encourage more interest and more engagement.

And such a stirring exhortation will garner claps and cheers – or, at least, their modern equivalent, ‘likes’ and RTs.

But when the nods finish and good intentions are superseded, there will still be little interest in local government.

Because nothing has changed substantially to make local government more accessible.

And so in local government continues to be dominated by those who would only get elected because of that lack of interest.

To which, in turn, there are two three responses.

The first is to shrug and say one gets the local elected representatives one deserves.

The second is to question the need for the democratic element in the provision of local services – after all, many people will not care who their local councillors are, so long as their bins are collected on time.

The third is to see lack of interest as the result of the lack of real powers for local government – and if local bodies had more powers then there would be more local interest.

None of these three responses are, for me, compelling.

But.

The Handforth incident suggests there is a way for there to be more interest in local government – and that is simply to make it easier for people to follow what is going on (and even participate) in the making of local government decisions.

One of the few benefits of the coronavirus lockdowns has been that various bodies are now deliberating online rather than in unknown council chambers, and that those deliberations are publicly available.

As a matter of democratic principle, and from the perspective of increasing transparency, there is great deal to be said for deliberations to be done virtually.

Here I do not mean that council proceedings should just be streamed, but that the actual meetings should be done virtually rather than in some council chamber or committee room.

Indeed, one could question whether – given new technology – there is now any need for council chambers at all, other than for ceremonial events and for showing determined tourists.

And we would be free from the tiresome mock-parliamentary debating society macho pedantic silliness of some oral debates – and it would be easier for all representatives to contribute rather than budding after dinner speakers and those who bray in their support.

Councillors would also be able to readily attend around their other professional and home responsibilities, rather than giving up whole days in the manner of leisurely amateurs in frock coats.

At a stroke such virtual proceedings as the norm would be instantly more accessible to the public – and also to otherwise sidelined councillors.

Much of what we take as the natural norms in our public affairs are just practices and categories we have inherited from previous generations.

And big set-piece meetings in ornate council chambers may have suited Victorians and Edwardians – but, if we were starting from a blank page today, would we come up with the same model?

(Indeed, would practically minded Victorians and Edwardians have insisted on their model had they been aware of our technology?)

Similar points can also be made about other formal meetings – and indeed court hearings.

Other than when the credibility of witness under examination is at issue – and there is no substitute for that being done in person – or when there are necessary reporting restrictions, there is no overwhelming reason why most court hearings cannot be done virtually.

The fact that we inherited practices from a time without virtual technology is no reason, by itself, to persist with those practices, as long as other principles such as due process and fairness are not adversely affected.

Making public affairs more accessible is not only a public good, but would have the practical utility of ensuring more engagement.

People watching – or participating in – the Handforth council meeting on their laptop or their phone (or indeed iPad) was for many a novelty.

But it would be good for democracy if virtual council and their formal meetings and hearings became the new natural norm.

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Did Jackie Weaver have the authority? – the law and policy of that Handforth Parish Council meeting

5th February 2021

Handforth Parish Council is not a happy parish council.

This is an extract from a formal Letter from the Director of Governance and Compliance at Cheshire District Council (text posted here):

And the unhappiest committee of all the committees of Handforth Parish Council is the Planning and Environment Committee.

An indication of this unhappiness can be seen in the minutes of its meeting of October 2020:

And then in November 2020:

Notice the mention of ChALC – this is to the Cheshire Association of Local Councils of which more in a moment.

So from the official record, something odd is going on.

And so we come to the ‘extraordinary’ meeting of that committee in December 2020, the agenda for which is here.

There is no mention on the agenda of who will do the clerking.

You will see that the chair of the wider parish council was expressly invited.

So were we.

Then this extraordinary ‘extraordinary’ committee meeting took place.

The formal minute of the first part of the meeting is as follows:

[ADD – a minute of a further related meeting that evening is here.]

As is now widely known, the minutes quoted above do not quite give justice to the remarkable scenes of that committee meeting.

This is compelling viewing, especially the first six minutes – and there is no surprise that it has gone viral.

So let us take what is said in this video in order.

The chair of the wider parish council (whose Zoom account describes him as a “Handforth PC Clerk”) refers to a meeting he was thrown out of ‘last time’ – it is not yet clear if this means the November meeting minuted above.

The chair then presses Jackie Weaver as to the latter’s standing, as a proper officer.

Weaver does not expressly claim to be a proper officer, but that she is clerking.

Who is Jackie Weaver?

Weaver is not a councillor nor is she mentioned in the agenda.

Weaver is no other than the Chief Officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils, the organisation which the committee has already had to refer the question of the legality of its meetings.

It appears she has been parachuted in as some sort of a municipal special agent.

The Winston Wolf of Cheshire local government.

The formal letter of the compliance officer and the previous minutes of the committee indicate why this invitation would have happened.

The minutes of this meeting describe her position as follows:

This indicates that she was not regarded for the purposes of the meeting as the ‘Proper Officer’.

And indeed, as we will see, the status of Jackie Weaver as ‘Proper Officer’ is a red herring.

Now we come to the ‘Standing Orders’.

Oh, the Standing Orders.

Standing Orders of any local authority are made under section 42 of the Local Government Act 1972.

Under the Standing Orders of this council, there can be ‘extraordinary’ committee meetings (standing order 17C):

And if the chair refuses to do so, then an extraordinary committee meeting can be called by two councillors (standing order 17D):

And this is what was done with this meeting.

So it would appear that the chair of the parish council may have erred in saying the meeting had not been called ‘in accordance with the law’.

Disorderly conduct is turn dealt with at standing order 10:

The chair of the parish council is thereby correct that only the chair can exclude people from the meeting.

The question is who is the chair of the meeting at the point the chair of the parish council is excluded?

(And then there is the more philosophical question of who can exclude a disruptive chair if the chair is disruptive.)

We then have the immortal exchange:

‘You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver, no authority at all!’

[Silence]

‘She’s just kicked him out.’

[…]

‘Read the standing orders, read them and understand them!’

At this point, on the face of the Standing Orders, it would appear that there had been an exclusions for disruptive behaviour, and that the exclusions – by technology if not by the power of the Standing Orders – had been effected by Weaver.

You will note that she also mentions reporting this to the compliance officer (the author of the formal letter of concern at the head of the post).

Weaver then takes the meeting to the election of a new chair, and another councillor is elected chair.

It then seems a message is sent to the excluded councillors that they could return if they behave, but they do not return.

A common sense solution many may think, if not one (strictly) in accordance with the Standing Orders.

Presumably the exclusions can be taken to then be ratified by the new chair, though this is not expressly said or minuted (and given the sequence of events, such a subsequent ratification may have been appropriate).

And the excluded chair and the disruptive councillors can hardly complain about their exclusions on the basis of non-compliance with the Standing Orders if, as they maintained, the committee meeting was illegitimate to begin with.

For on their own version of events, there was no valid committee meeting even taking place.

This viral incident is an insight into the reality of one local government meeting.

On balance, it would appear the disruptive councillors were wrong to say the extraordinary meeting was invalid.

And, on balance, the exact manner of their exclusions was not in accordance with the Standing Orders – though, in the circumstances, the disruptive councillors can hardly complain.

You would not get any of what really happened from the official minutes.

This is a useful reminder to all – including historians and legal commentators – that formal documents often do not give the full story.

As such this video is a boon for public transparency of council meeting.

This is why all council meetings should be streamed and available on video.

And in conclusion, on the face of the Standing Orders, Jackie Weaver did not seem to have the authority to call the extraordinary committee meeting – but she did not need to do so.

Weaver did not have authority as ‘Proper Officer’ – but she did not claim that she had such authority and she did need not any such powers for clerking.

Weaver did not appear to have the formal power to exclude the disruptive councillors – but, given that this exclusion was then accepted by the new chair, and that the disruption was plain, that does not seem to practically matter.

And these conclusions can be offered on the basis of reading the Standing Orders – reading and understanding them.

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