On Friday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s administration asked London’s High Court to halt a public inquiry into its COVID-19 pandemic response and release some private WhatsApp chats.
Britain’s Cabinet Office refused to release WhatsApp messages regarding the pandemic and other political matters last month, declaring some content “unambiguously irrelevant.”
In 2021, the government commissioned retired senior judge Heather Hallett to investigate two years of WhatsApp communications involving important officials, including former prime minister Boris Johnson and 40 individuals.
The Cabinet Office’s lawyer James Eadie told the court that the Cabinet Office opposed the inquiry’s demands “with some considerable reluctance.”
He said in court filings that inquiry materials “simply cannot cover all government business and all the policy areas that were live over the two years.”
Eadie said the WhatsApp messages contained “comments of a personal nature” about government officials and family information.
Hallett’s counsel described the Cabinet Office’s restrictions on public inquiries’ document compulsion as “flawed and unworkable.”
In court records, Hugo Keith said Johnson’s witness statement earlier this month prompted a WhatsApp chat reevaluation.
“Material that had been redacted by the Cabinet Office as ‘unambiguously irrelevant’ is now assessed as relevant in light of Mr Johnson’s statement,” Keith added.
Johnson’s lawyers argue the Cabinet Office’s case should be dismissed since he is a party.
“Mr Johnson has no objection to the inquiry inspecting the materials unredacted, subject to appropriate security and confidentiality arrangements,” they stated in court filings.
