Aย legal challenge against the Metropolitan Policeโs investigation into Boris Johnsonโs attendance at lockdown parties was heard in the High Court on Wednesday.
The action had been brought by the Good Law Project and a former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Lord Paddick.
Boris Johnson was issued with a ยฃ50 Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN), after the Met Policeโs probe concluded that he had unlawfully attended a birthday party thrown in his honour at Downing Street during the first lockdown.
Director of Good Law Project, Jo Maugham, said, “We canโt understand โ and the Met wonโt disclose โ how Boris Johnson dodged fines for going to parties that junior civil servants were fined for attending. But what it looks like is special treatment for the powerful.”
The High Court rejected permission in their ruling on Wednesday that a legal challenge brought by Good Law Project and former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Lord Paddick, can go ahead.
Maugham added, โWe are disappointed – but sadly not surprised.
โWe think this decision ignores the quite proper questions that people have about what they understandably perceive to be differences of treatment between the powerful and the rest of us.
โIt canโt be one rule for those in power and another rule for us.
“We are considering whether to appeal.”
On Tuesday the Good Law Project said, โThis case focuses on the Met Policeโs failure to even send questionnaires โ their primary method of investigating Partygate events โ to former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, regarding two other lockdown gatherings that he attended in November and December 2020. A number of civil servants and officials who took part in these events were sent questionnaires and ultimately fined.
โIn pre-action correspondence, the Met failed to explain why Mr Johnson was not sent the questionnaires, or how they concluded that his attendance โ unlike that of other attendees โ was lawful.โ
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