2023

CASE PROVEN

In January 2023 it became clear that we had forced The Met Police into a position where it had to answer the CGAN case with greater precision. The Met said that a detailed explanation would be issued by its legal team.

On 27 March 2023 the Directorate of Legal Services issued a more comprehensive letter.

On 3 April CGAN replied showing that the Met’s thinking was seriously flawed. On 25 April The Directorate of legal Services issued a further response. That too contained serious errors and was answered by CGAN on 29 April.

In May the Directorate asked for more time to consider its position but on 10 July SO15 at The Met emailed a letter summarising its position (letter is dated in June but was emailed on 10 July). On 13 July we asked for clarification  – was the Directorate dealing with this or SO15?  We received a short email indicating the Directorate had referred the matter back to SO15.

On 27 July we issued a letter that summarised the facts that were not in dispute. This is the damning evidence that shows there is no lawful basis for The Met’s decision and that The Met knows this. It is this letter that leads us to conclude the Met has perverted the course of justice.

On 31 July the Directorate emailed stating it stood by its stance and would not engage in further communication . At the point it was proven to be acting unlawfully, The Met ended all further communication.

There is a lot of detail to digest in the documents above, so we recommend people read the letter to The Met of 27 July, which sets out the damning proof that The Met knows there is no lawful basis for its assertion ICCA 2001 cannot be used to prosecute and stop those who cause mass death by the policies that drive climate breakdown.

Here’s a summary of the Met’s flawed thinking: –

  • The Met argued that international criminal law required ‘direct intent’ to commit the crimes outlined in the Rome Statute. In fact, Article 30.2(b) of the Rome Statute allows for prosecution of crimes of ‘oblique intent’. Despite CGAN repeatedly explaining this to The Met, it persisted with a pretence that oblique intent crimes could not be prosecuted.
  • The Met’s legal team (The Directorate) referred to a legal precedent around ‘oblique intent’. This showed that it had to be very likely that mass death and suffering would occur if certain actions/policies were pursued. CGAN referred to the science that proved that the harms were an inevitable consequence of the policies pursued.  There was absolute certainty that mass death and suffering would ensue if polluting activities were expanded and the pace of decarbonising the economy was slowed unnecessarily.
  • The Directorate revealed that it didn’t properly understand the science surrounding climate breakdown and the impacts in terms of the scale of death and suffering.
  • The Directorate made incorrect assumptions around attribution of responsibility and causation.
  • The Directorate did not acknowledge the range of cases that have been successfully prosecuted elsewhere (both genocide and crimes against humanity).
  • The Directorate refused to answer the points made around the concepts of common purpose & joint enterprise.
  • The Directorate did not dispute a single one of the scientific references provided that underpin the case.
  • The Directorate had been asked why The Met refused to obtain expert legal advice from the International Criminal Court and refused to explain why it too had failed to seek expert legal opinion. The Met did not dispute our accusation that it would not go to the ICC for advice because The Met knew it was wrong.
  • The Directorate made reference on three occasions to what it saw as an inability of The Met to intervene in the policies of a democratically elected government. CGAN explained that The Met’s loyalty is not to individual politicians, it is to Parliament. Parliament lays down the legislation we must all obey, and it is not for The Met to pick and choose which laws it will enforce and which it will ignore.

CGAN reiterated the core of the case to prove intent.

The accused had been warned by expert scientists that the policies they support would cause mass loss of life, immense suffering and the displacement of millions.

The accused saw the scale of suffering was enormous and met representatives of the primary victim nations at international conferences.

The victims begged not to be killed, some using the words “this is a death sentence for my people”.

The accused then saw the pace and scale of harm increase and were warned the death and suffering would be unprecedented.

They also saw that the process of annihilating low-lying island states was accelerating and the number of nations to be destroyed depended upon the end to such policies.

But the accused continued to expand some polluting activities (e,g, aviation) and refused to decarbonise other sectors of the economy as quickly as they could (e.g. the refusal of a mass home insulation programme).

The accused did not hate the victims, but the accused knew they could not achieve their personal/national financial and economic objectives without the harms occurring. The suffering, death and destruction was a necessary and unavoidable consequence of the policies they and others pursued.

CASE PROVEN

The correspondence reveals that the CGAN case was robust and the Met’s refusal to mount a criminal investigation was fatally flawed. The Met’s Directorate of Legal Services is now considering its next step.

A video explaining where we are with our case can be viewed here.