Britain to legally challenge demand for Covid documents by public inquiry
World
Britain to legally challenge demand for Covid documents by public inquiry
LONDON (Reuters) - The British government will legally challenge a demand for access to WhatsApp messages and other internal communications by a public inquiry looking into its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, it said on Thursday.
The inquiry, ordered by the government itself in 2021 and chaired by a former judge, had given the government a 1500 GMT deadline on Thursday to hand over the documents.
"The Cabinet Office has today sought leave to bring a judicial review," the office responsible for overseeing the operation of government said in a letter to the inquiry after that deadline passed.
A judicial review is a legal challenge to the lawfulness of a decision by a public body.
"We do so with regret and with an assurance that we will continue to cooperate fully with the inquiry before, during and after the jurisdictional issue in question is determined by the courts," the letter said.
The Cabinet Office has so far resisted handing over some of the messages and records requested by the inquiry, saying they amounted to "unambiguously irrelevant information" beyond the inquiry's scope.
"We consider there to be important issues of principle at stake here, affecting both the rights of individuals and the proper conduct of government," it added in the letter.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said earlier on Thursday the government was confident in its position.
"We've been long cooperating with the inquiry, important that we learn the lessons of Covid so that we're well prepared in the future," Sunak told reporters on the sidelines of a summit in Moldova.
