Fall of Kabul whistleblower wins unfair termination case

Civil servants who complained about the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan have won an unfair dismissal case against the Foreign Office.

Josie Stewart, a former Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office employee, was fired in 2022 after raising concerns about the mishandling of the evacuation from Kabul by the government.

Stewart gave a BBC Newsnight anonymous interview after a junior co-worker contacted the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to provide evidence of FCDO’s failures.

She deemed that these disclosures were in the public’s interest because they related to how the government handled the evacuation of Afghanistan in 2021 and the subsequent denials by the Prime Minister and other senior ministers.

Information included evidence that Boris Johnson prioritised the evacuation of staff from an animal welfare charity over other more deserving situations.

The BBC published her unredacted email and accidentally revealed her true identity. She was then stripped of her clearance for security and fired.

The FCDO claimed that at the hearing of the tribunal in May 2024 the right to make a whistleblower complaint in the public’s interest did not apply to civil servants leaking information.

Gavin Millar KC, her barrister, responded that if this argument was successful, it would “drive a horse and cart” through the Public Interest Disclosure Act of 1998, which protects those who make whistleblower disclosures.

The FCDO held a preliminary hearing to determine whether it could limit public access to proceedings, and whether any witness testimony would be protected by parliamentary privilege.

The tribunal’s judgment has been published, and it supports Stewart’s claim of unfair dismissal, as well as her assertion that her disclosures served the public good.

It said that “the claimant believed things to be true based on her observations in the course and work she did,”

Stewart’s Law Firm James & West Law believe this is the first time that an employment tribunal has ruled that it was legal for a public servant to directly share unauthorised information with the media.

Her lawyer Cathy James stated that the ruling was an “important win” not only for Ms Stewart but also for civil servants and the public interest.

Stewart stated that her experience working at the FCDO during the evacuation “reflected our worst political system”.

“The outcome of the case does not change anything, but it has achieved the goal I set out to accomplish: It has established that civil service employees have the right to speak up when systemic failures place lives in danger, as occurred during the Afghan evacuation.

“I hope senior officials, knowing their colleagues’ rights, will do more to improve accountability and speak the truth when needed to help build trust in government.

We can’t have an unjust system that forces public servants who are dedicated to their careers to choose between their conscience or their career.

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