Tribunal rejects barrister’s bid to have ‘boys’ club’ disciplinary case thrown out

A tribunal has rejected a barrister’s request for it to throw out disciplinary proceedings brought against her for saying a judge had shown a “boys’ club attitude” , but it ruled that she can argue that the regulator discriminated against her because she is a woman.

At a private hearing this month, lawyers for Charlotte Proudman argued that the Bar Standards Board (BSB) held her to different standards than male barristers and so the case against her should be struck out.

Alison Padfield KC said in written submissions that bringing charges against Proudman for her comments about Jonathan Cohen in a 14-part thread she posted on X, while not investigating male barristers’ criticisms of another judge, was “unfathomable”.

Nine male barristers cited had variously referred to another judge’s approach to bail applications as “unfathomably stupid”, “idiotic”, “pretty bonkers”, “unlawful” and “illegal”.

The BSB argued at the private hearing that to allow Proudman to plead that she was discriminated against by the regulator was beyond the competence of the tribunal, but this was rejected by Jonathan Carroll, the chair of the Bar Tribunal and Adjudication Service, in his ruling on the strike out application.

Carroll wrote: “I am satisfied that absent any other meaningful venue available to the respondent [Proudman] to litigate her allegation that the decision of the BSB to initiate regulatory proceedings against her arises out of the BSBs discrimination against her on the grounds of sex and protected beliefs (feminism), she can and must be able to ventilate those issues before the bar tribunal.”

He said the full hearing, expected to take place in December, would probably require witnesses from the BSB to give oral evidence about the way decisions were taken in Proudman’s cases and in those involving other, male barristers that her legal team had cited.

Carroll said he was not satisfied that he should strike out the whole matter and it should proceed to a full hearing before a three-person panel.

He wrote that Proudman’s beliefs were undoubtedly genuine and she was entitled to act and speak in support of them but “her right to do so is subject to those limitations or obligations and duties that she has voluntarily accepted upon herself by virtue of her profession and its regulatory regime and code of conduct”.

In her thread, Proudman said a judgment by Cohen – a member of the Garrick Club, which recently ended its ban on female members after 193 years – “has echoes of the ‘boys’ club’” and she was troubled by him referring to the relationship between a woman and her part-time judge and barrister ex-husband as “tempestuous” and describing the alleged domestic violence as “reckless”.

Cohen has not responded to the criticisms against him, in keeping with the protocol that judges cannot comment on cases outside court.