The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, represented in the upcoming Covid Inquiry by long-standing Inquiries expert, and Head of Major Inquests & Inquiries at Broudie Jackson Canter, Elkan Abrahamson, have announced that they are now considering legal action against Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the form of a judicial review.
More than six months after the Prime Minister first appointed Baroness Heather Hallett as the Chair of the Inquiry, the bereaved are still waiting for an official launch date. As we are merely days away from July, it is difficult to ignore that Johnson has failed to live up to his promise of a Spring 2022 start for the Inquiry, a promise that he made in the Houses of Parliament back in May 2021.
Further delays to this Inquiry will have a significant impact on the outcomes. As section 35 of the Inquiries Act (2005) states:
A person is guilty of an offence if during the course of an inquiry—
(a) he intentionally suppresses or conceals a document that is, and that he knows or believes to be, a relevant document, or
(b) he intentionally alters or destroys any such document.
This is only an offence once the Inquiry is launched. Until we have an official launch date for the Inquiry, there is no system in place to protect and preserve the crucial evidence that will play a key role in this process. Evidence can be lost, damaged, even destroyed, without consequence.
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group believe the significant delays are a breach of the Inquiries Act, which requires Boris Johnson (as the Minister of the Inquiry), to specify the setting up date of the Inquiry within a reasonable time after appointing the Chair, constituting a judicial review.
Jo Goodman, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said:
It’s clear that the only lesson the Prime Minister learned from partygate is thinking he can get away with lying to the faces of bereaved families. He assured us he would begin the inquiry by Spring 2022, a deadline that was already far too late, and here we are at the end of June with no progress. These delays slow down how quickly we can learn lessons from the pandemic and could cost lives, so why is the Prime Minister endlessly wasting time? He could set the inquiry up and get the process moving with the stroke of a pen.
Even more worryingly, this delay makes it far more likely that key evidence will be lost or destroyed. If the Prime Minister can’t do what’s needed to let Baroness Hallett crack on with the job of learning the lessons from the deaths of our loved ones, we’ll need to consider every option available to us.
The six-month wait that the bereaved families have so far had to endure is unacceptable, Elkan Abrahamson explains:
In the vast majority of inquiries a setting up date is given within days or weeks of the Chair being appointed, so this delay of over six months is both unprecedented and totally inexplicable. The consequences are extremely serious, as it only becomes a criminal offence to destroy or tamper with evidence after the inquiry's start date. By failing to give one, the Prime Minister is opening the door to key evidence being destroyed.
If you’ve lost a loved one to Covid, it isn’t too late to join the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group and be part of this Inquiry. We are fighting for core participation status and striving to ensure that the bereaved families will be at the heart of this Inquiry, where they belong.
Visit our Covid Inquiry FAQ page for answers to some of our commonly asked questions surrounding the Inquiry, next steps, how to instruct free legal representation and more.