logo
Top civil servant told to ‘get on it' after Supreme Court ruling on gender

Top civil servant told to ‘get on it' after Supreme Court ruling on gender

Yahoo24-06-2025
The Scottish Government is seeking to 'prepare the ground' to act when new guidance on gender is issued, the country's most senior civil servant has insisted.
Permanent Secretary Joe Griffin came under fire from MSP Michelle Thomson, who told him it was a 'very poor look' that 10 weeks on from the landmark Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman, the government had 'not done anything about it'.
Mr Griffin insisted the Scottish Government was 'taking action where we think that is appropriate and possible', pending a further update from regulators at the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
But with two women's rights groups – For Women Scotland and Sex Matters – now threatening further legal action against the Scottish Government, Ms Thomson told the top civil servant he should 'get on it'.
She challenged the Permanent Secretary on the issue in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling back in April that the words 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
That judgment came about after a challenge to the Scottish Government by For Women Scotland – with ministers, including First Minister John Swinney, making clear that while they accept that, they are waiting for further guidance from the EHRC before acting.
Ms Thomson however pointed out that at Holyrood the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body has ruled that the use of toilet facilities designated as either male or female will be based on biological sex – preventing trans people from using the toilet of their preferred gender.
Mr Griffin insisted there is a 'range of action we have been taking already', adding that Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville had tasked him with leading a short life working group 'to take stock of the actions we need to take'.
Speaking as he gave evidence to MSPs on the Finance and Public Administration Committee, Mr Griffin said: 'These are the actions we are taking while we wait for the end of the EHRC process to review their statutory guidance.
'Once that is finalised we will then be able to take a further series of actions.'
He added: 'We are taking action where we think that is appropriate and possible, pending the finalisation of the EHRC guidance.'
When Ms Thomson then demanded to know what action had been taken 'beyond talking about taking action', Mr Griffin told her: 'Specific actions, I can't give you that right now.'
But he insisted the work being done was looking to 'prepare the ground' so that the government is ready to implement changes once the EHRC guidance is finalised.
The Permanent Secretary said: 'We in the Scottish Government are in a very similar position to the UK Government and the Welsh Government in our understanding of our responsibility being we need to wait for the guidance for the implementation of some actions.'
But with two potential further legal challenges that Ms Thomson said could potentially result in a 'significant loss of public money', the SNP MSP told him she was 'staggered why you are not acting now'.
Mr Griffin said the advice he was given 'remains nevertheless that we should wait for the statutory regulator to finalise their guidance'.
He added: 'I am assured that the advice that I've got is the correct advice.
'We find ourselves in a very similar position to our colleagues at Westminster and in Cardiff.'
But Ms Thomson told him: 'I think my firm advice to you would be to look afresh at that. It is no justification under law, frankly, to say: 'Ah well, that's what everybody else was doing.'
'The Supreme Court judgment was compellingly clear, there is a threat of two further legal actions. My firm advice to you, Permanent Secretary, would be to get on it, because I think you are ultimately the accountable officer responsible for ensuring the Scottish Government upholds the law.
'And regardless of your view in this matter, I personally think it is a very poor look that we're 10 weeks later and we haven't done anything about it.'
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

South Africa to Amend Budget Process After Political Wrangling
South Africa to Amend Budget Process After Political Wrangling

Bloomberg

time9 minutes ago

  • Bloomberg

South Africa to Amend Budget Process After Political Wrangling

South Africa's National Treasury plans to revamp its 2026 budget-preparation process after political wrangling saw this year's proposal altered twice. 'South Africa's current budget process has not kept pace with the country's evolving fiscal, institutional, and political realities' the Treasury said in a statement on Wednesday. 'A comprehensive budget reform will be implemented for the 2026 budget that aims to clarify trade-offs, reduce waste, and prioritize high-impact programs.'

Proponents hope to make Ten Commandments next Supreme Court test of religion in schools
Proponents hope to make Ten Commandments next Supreme Court test of religion in schools

The Hill

time38 minutes ago

  • The Hill

Proponents hope to make Ten Commandments next Supreme Court test of religion in schools

State laws requiring the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms keep losing in court, but that won't matter if they win at the highest court in the land. Outside advocates believe supporters of laws in Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas are actively trying to get the cases before the Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, those supporters are consistently suffering legal losses, including in some of the most conservative courts in the country. Lawsuits have challenged the laws, which use similar language to mandate posters of the Ten Commandments, on the grounds that they violate students' and parents' First Amendment rights. But supporters believe this is a Supreme Court that will see them differently. 'I don't think anybody is surprised that these policies, these laws in the states that seek to put the Ten Commandments back in schools, have been challenged in court. They're making their way through the proper channels, and we still are very confident that at the end of the day, when these cases get to the Supreme Court, that they're going to uphold them based on the new history-and-tradition test,' said Matt Krause, of counsel with the First Liberty Institute. The so-called Lemon test that was previously used to determine whether a measure violated the Establishment Clause was undone in the high court's 2022 Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision, which determined a public school football coach's First Amendment rights were violated after he was suspended for praying on fields after games. 'I think once they threw out the Lemon test and instituted this history-and-tradition test, there's really no way for this — this matter that was decided under the Lemon test — to be fully resolved without the Supreme Court speaking on it, and so they've given us the history-and-tradition test, but it hasn't been fleshed out necessarily in the last several years,' Krause said. 'This Ten Commandments case, I think, helps give the justices the opportunity to provide even more of a framework of what they started in Kennedy,' he added. When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, considered perhaps the most conservative such court in the country, ruled last month that Louisiana's Ten Commandments law is unconstitutional, it made a point to note 'it is the Supreme Court's 'prerogative alone to overrule one of its precedents.'' But opponents of the laws say it is not a done deal the Supreme Court would side with them, let alone even decide to take up the cases. 'The problem is, I just don't think the court itself — this court — would be friendly to a claim that it's permissible to post the Ten Commandments in the public schools. In other words, I think [proponents] are operating on a misconception,' said Bob Tuttle, professor of law and religion at the George Washington University Law School. 'So the people that won the case in Kennedy vs. Bremerton School District made a big point of going around and telling the school districts that all kinds of things had changed in the law now, and they were free to bring religion back into public schools, and that is not what the case stood for at all,' Tuttle added. The 6-3 majority conservative justices have tended to side with right-wing concerns on religion and education, including this term when they ruled along ideological lines in favor of parents who sought to remove their children from instruction that included LGBTQ-themed books. But the high court also rejected the nation's first openly religious charter school in a 4-4 decision after Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself. 'I don't think the Supreme Court is going to see this, and if they did see it, they would be forced to make a choice. I mean, they would be forced to really confront radical change in Establishment Clause law affecting the teaching in schools, and they have not done that,' Tuttle said. Others argue there have been signs throughout the whole process that Republicans were aiming to create a more friendly court to push this sort of legislation through. Emily Witt, senior communication and media strategist for Texas Freedom Network, pointed to state lawmakers rejecting all amendments to the Ten Commandments legislation besides one where the state attorney general would have to represent school districts if the law was challenged. 'I think that says that they are expecting to be that this bill will result in a lawsuit, which is a misuse of taxpayer funds, and also says, you know, that you're trying to pass something that is not constitutional,' Witt said. 'In this case, from our perspective, there's been a decades-long strategy on the right to stack the courts, to pass legislation that is going to have to go through a judicial process because it really tests the boundaries of the Constitution, and so that that is a big worry for us, that this could go to the Supreme Court, and unfortunately … [it] could rule in a way that, from our perspective, does not respect our Constitution,' she added.

Trump is caught in an Epstein web of his own making
Trump is caught in an Epstein web of his own making

Fast Company

time38 minutes ago

  • Fast Company

Trump is caught in an Epstein web of his own making

What happens when you spend decades seeding salacious stories about evil lurking in the halls of power, demanding evidence to prove basic truths, and questioning the veracity of that evidence once it's presented? Donald Trump is finding out. Over the last week, the president has been trying to fight his way out of a web of his own creation, as some of his truest followers in MAGA world call for the full release of the government's investigative files concerning convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The outcry from Trump acolytes comes after the Department of Justice published a two-page memo earlier this month, stating that Epstein's supposed 'client list,' which Attorney General Pam Bondi previously said was on her desk, didn't actually exist. Following a weeklong uproar from both the left and right, Trump finally called on a federal court judge to unseal the grand jury testimony related to Epstein's case. The Justice Department has also subpoenaed Epstein's associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving her own 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. But the moves have done little to quell the outrage from the right, particularly after House Speaker Mike Johnson sent the chamber into summer recess early this week to head off a vote on releasing the files. The move prompted fury from the party's MAGA wing. 'Crimes have been committed,' Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told reporters. 'If there's no justice and no accountability, people are going to get sick of it.' As all this has played out, Trump has cast about for someone to blame, pointing the finger at Democrats and his 'PAST supporters' for stoking the scandal. In truth, it's Trump who is uniquely responsible for cultivating the culture of conspiracy in which he's now floundering. Credit where it's due: Trump's long and well-documented history of conspiracy-mongering has been perhaps one of his greatest skills and has almost always worked out in his favor. His constant questioning of President Obama's birthplace was so successful that it transformed Trump, then a reality star and real estate mogul, into a cable news fixture. Later on, his success at convincing nearly three-quarters of Republicans that the 2020 election was stolen played no small role in securing his 2024 election victory. Even the speculation about which other A-listers were in Epstein's orbit were often fair game for Trump. In 2019, Trump fed rumors that the Clintons were somehow involved in Epstein's death by suicide in prison. 'Did Bill Clinton go to the island? That's the question,' Trump said at the time. Nevermind that Trump and Epstein were close friends or that he once told New York magazine that Epstein 'likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.' Trump is a devoted student of the 'I'm rubber, you're glue' school of politics—and for the most part, it's worked. But now it's Trump who's found himself stuck to Epstein, and he has no one to blame but himself. After all, it was Trump who taught his followers not to trust the abridged version of a story (see: Trump's campaign to secure Obama's long-form birth certificate in 2011). Now, it stands to reason those same people want more than a two-page summary of the DOJ's Epstein investigation. And it was Trump who convinced a certain subset of the American electorate to scour video evidence for alleged election night aberrations in 2020. Is it any wonder they're now spiraling over the missing minute (or minutes, according to Wired) in the video footage the government released of the night Epstein died? Meanwhile, the stories linking Trump to Epstein just keep growing. On Monday, The New York Times reported that one of Epstein's accusers encouraged the FBI to look into Trump as early as 1996. And The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump once sent Epstein a lewd birthday card, featuring a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman and allusions to their shared secrets. The Journal reported that the card is among the documents DOJ officials reviewed as part of the Epstein investigation. Trump has denied the story, calling the article 'fake news' and has since sued the Journal for defamation. That controversy prompted some conservatives who'd been critical of the Trump administration's approach to Epstein to leap to the president's defense. But that reprieve may be short-lived. As one Trump ally, Mike Benz, said on Steve Bannon's podcast over the weekend, 'You trained us to go after this issue.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store