Ex-Barrister disbarred for exposing Supreme Court’s Heathrow lie
A disciplinary tribunal on Thursday disbarred Tim Crosland, an ex-barrister who leaked the result of the U.K. Supreme Court’s ruling in support of the expansion of Heathrow Airport, for the “considerable reputational harm” he did to the profession.
Speaking after the ruling, Crosland said:
“The Supreme Court concealed from the public evidence that Heathrow expansion would cause the 1.5˚C Paris temperature limit to be breached, with catastrophic implications for us all. It did so in the midst of a climate and ecological emergency, declared by Parliament on 1 May 2019. Preserving the confidentiality of draft judgements is important, but conserving the conditions which make the planet habitable is more important still.
Sadly the British legal system has made a Faustian pact with the carbon economy, and CIty barristers, with the backing of the courts, make vast profits from supporting fossil fuel transactions, knowing full well they are leading directly to mass loss of life and collapse of the rule of law. The same legal system that legitimised the slave trade and the plunder of the Global South now veils the destruction of our own country in a cloak of legality.
Maybe the Bar Standards Board should be more concerned with the integrity (or otherwise) of people like that.”