Revealed: The ultra Establishment Judge who granted a cost capping order for WASPI without a hearing

Posted on June 28, 2025 by davidhencke

There was an unusual procedure in the courts in the long battle between the Department of Work and Pensions and WASPI last week.

The issue was whether WASPI’s legal costs would be capped in their application for a judicial review over the government’s decision not to award compensation for partial maladministration for 50s women who faced a six year delay in getting their pensions. It led to some pretty strong exchanges between Bindman’s solicitors and DWP lawyers, the latter were vehemently opposed to the cost cap, arguing it was not a public interest issue.

Instead of a hearing last Monday to decide the issue – it was suddenly ” vacated” by the parties concerned and a very senior judge in charge of the administrative court decided to grant the cost capping for WASPI in advance when they bring a case to the courts for permission to have a judicial review. CEDAWinLAW applied to be a friend of the court and submitted documents on the substantive issue on discrimination and maladministration.

CEDAWinLAW said: “As friends to the court, CEDAWinLAW’s Amicus Curaie Intervention and Cost Capping Order applications matter to 3.5million 1950s Women whom we uniquely represent: Thus followed, the submission of our legal documents out of relevant expertise and strong interest in the outcome of Case No AC-2025-LON-000811.

Our purpose is to assist the court by offering impartial information, legal arguments and broader public interest perspectives that are not fully represented by the parties in the case.”

They have had no reply from the court. They have put in a complaint and also written to the judge.

What is extraordinary is the CV of this senior judge. Mr Justice Swift who took the decision shows he is no friend of campaigners and has taken a consistently pro government stance over the years.

A large part of his career was spent as the First Treasury Counsel – known as the Treasury Devil – from 2007 to 2014. The current one is James Eadie who played a prominent and a successful role in defending the government in the judicial review against Backto60 , who fought the Department for Work and Pensions. to claim compensation for 3.5 million 50swomen lost pensions on the grounds of discrimination and maladministration. Their case was never looked at by the Supreme Court who claimed it was ” out of time”.

The whole point of the post is to defend the government from NOT paying out people who sought compensation or redress from government departments, hence him taking the prime role for the DWP. The Treasury is never keen to spend too much money.

More recently he took two the Government’s side on two high profile cases – the deportation of refugees to Rwanda – and the fate of Julian Assange, who is now a freeman. As Wikipedia said:

On 10 June 2022, Mr Justice Swift ruled in favour of the UK Government that the deportation flights of unsuccessful asylum seekers in the UK to Rwanda should be allowed to proceed, as there was material public interest in doing so.^[5] He added in his ruling that the risk posed to refugees was “in the realms of speculation”.^[6]

On 8 June 2023, Swift ruled in favour of the UK Government, and rejected the appeal of political prisoner Julian Assange‘s legal team, which had filed two appeals before the court against the then Home Secretary Priti Patel‘s decision to extradite Wikileaks founder being indicted by the United States under the Espionage Act. He was later released.

So while WASPI did have a friend at the head of the administrative court it is by no means certain that they will get an easy ride when it comes to getting permission for a judicial review which will require a public hearing. If he had refused the organisation would have been set back as the department could try to get all its costs against them if it won.

In the end the ruling means that the case is being regraded in the “public interest” much as the case for a judicial review the Backto60 case was regarded as a public interest case.

What is staring everyone in the face is why not go for mediation rather than have a long drawn out judicial review which could take years if there are appeals and still needs judicial permission to go ahead.

WASPI set its face against this and not only refused but actively opposed CEDAWinLAW’s attempt to do this through the courts, siding with the DWP’s opposition to this.

Looking at the present situation Angela Madden, who runs the WASPI campaign, appears to be accepting, unlike her bold claims of getting £10,000 for everybody at the Labour Party Conference a few years ago, a token payment so the government acknowledge the maladministration found in the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s report. She in her last message suggested she was not looking for compensation for lost pensions but for the government to accept it needed to pay the women after the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s report.

Yet her members have already raised over £227,000 for a legal case and the organisation wants another £43,000 for what they admit will be a complex hearing. At this rate the legal costs may exceed the award.

In the meantime CEDAWinLAW is applying for observer status in the proceedings.

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Time to start mediation : 50s women deliver letter to PM at Downing Street

Posted on February 25, 2025 by davidhencke

From right to left Jocelynne Scutt, former Australian judge; Ian Byrne, Labour MP for Liverpool,West Derby and myself a journalist and a patron of CEDAWinLAW.

Waspi threaten further legal action and another judicial review

The present impasse over whether 50swomen should receive any compensation at all after ministers refused to pay must cease.

WASPI who relied on the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s weak findings of partial maladministration to get somewhere between £1000 and £3000 compensation for the 3.5 million women who suffered up to a six year delay in their pensions have been totally defeated and are having to restart from scratch.

CEDAWinLAW, formerly BackTo60, are now pressing to avoid further legal action and go straight to mediation with the government – hence the letter to the PM Sir Keir Starmer, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves and the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall.

The government is now facing a two pronged attack over the issue from two groups with different approaches but both are aiming to provide some compensation for the 50swomen.

The approach by CEDAWinLAW is much broader than WASPI which is only concerned with getting some recompense for the partial maladministration Sir Robert Behrens, the former Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, made in his long drawn out findings even though he conceded that the women were not directly financially affected by their lack of knowledge.

CEDAWinLAW are putting forward a case that the women were both subject to discrimination by being the only group affected by the delay and by the fact that unlike men they did not have the opportunities to build up the numbers of years to get a full pensions by historic discriminatory measures such as being barred from making contributions.

CEDAW is also relying on two key points. The UK under Margaret Thatcher signed up to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1986. This body is monitoring the UK’s progress in meeting the terms of the convention – and the issue of discrimination against 50s women is on their agenda in Geneva and will also be raised next month at a women’s conference on discrimination in New York.

Secondly the UK is moving domestically to accept that mediation is a better way of solving issues across the board rather than clogging up the courts with long running disputes. All this explained succinctly by Jocelynne Scutt, a former Australian judge and a women’s campaigner, in the video below

Now WASPI are planning to do the opposite and engage in a long war of attrition again in the courts against the DWP for throwing out any hope of compensation. Now having covered the long running judicial review by Backto60 from the initial hearing to the Court of Appeal ( the Supreme Court wouldn’t even hear it) this is committing their supporters to years of waiting and a huge financial burden running well into six figures to maintain the fight.

John Halford, head of public law and human rights, Bindmans. Pic credit: Bindmans website

The scale of the issue can be shown by the pre action letter sent to by John Halford of Bindman’s to the DWP. Not only is he is asking the ministry to cancel the decision they made not to compensate the women but he gets involved in a long convoluted argument into why the women should be paid and into the minutie of the detail of various surveys the ministry undertook to make his case.. Given the courts preference to look at precedents he will not be able to escape the DWP making references to the previous judicial review and using it to their advantage to quash such an action. The full text of his letter is reproduced below.

25-02-23-Letter-before-claim-WASPI-v-SSWP[1]Download

Now buried in this is a U turn by WASPI. The letter states it would like to explore an alternative disputes resolution to solve the problem. This is extraordinary about turn because only last year CEDAWinLAW put forward the same idea and invited WASPI to be an interested party. John Halford sent for all the papers and flatly rejected the approach. Not only that but presumably on the orders of Angela Madden, who runs the WASPI company, decided to side with the DWP against CEDAWinLAW if it came to court. Again the DWP could use it against them if they get a good lawyer.

In many ways this is a very sad tale as no agreement is possible between any of the groups fighting to get justice for the 3.5 million 50swomen. which in the short term will suit the DWP who can play off one group against another. There is also no real leadership from the All Party Parliamentary Group on State Pension Equality for Women led by Rebecca Long Bayley, MP for Salford, who describes herself as a wife, mother and proud Socialist, to bang heads together and go for the government over this.

In the meantime the cohort is starting to die out which will be very convenient for all those MPs and ministers whose inaction just prolongs any justice.

But in the long term this issue, the axing of the winter fuel allowance and what I hear is going to be the biggest assault on disabled people’s benefits in a generation will lose Labour its core support and pave the way for Nigel Farage to be our next Prime Minister.