25th February 2025
Civil Servant Unfairly Dismissed For Whistleblowing On The Government’s Afghan Exit
The Employment Tribunal has ruled that a Government civil servant was unfairly dismissed when she was fired following her interview with BBC Newsnight about the “chaotic” evacuation of Afghan citizens during NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Following NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Josie Stewart, a Foreign Office civil servant, gave an interview to BBC Newsnight about the department’s handling of the crisis. The interview shed light on the “chaos” of the withdrawal, and on emails which suggested that the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had involvement in the evacuation of a pet charity.
A BBC Journalist accidentally identified her as a confidential source on social media, which led to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) removing her security clearance. FDCO argued to the Tribunal that because her security clearance had been revoked, there were no other suitable roles for her, so they had been forced to fire her.
However, the Employment Tribunal ruled that Stewart’s disclosure constituted a ‘qualifying disclosure’.
A ‘qualifying disclosure’ is a disclosure of information which, in the reasonable belief of the worker making the disclosure, is made in the public interest. A qualifying disclosure tends to show a criminal offence, a failure to comply with legal obligations, a miscarriage of justice, the endangerment of an individual’s health and safety or damage to the environment.
In this case, The Tribunal found that Stewart’s belief that she had made the disclosure in the public interest was a reasonable belief. They ruled that it was reasonable for Stewart to have gone to the BBC when the relevant information had already been put in the public domain, and when the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary were denying things that Stewart believed to be true based on her observations at work.
Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, Employees have protection from ‘unfair dismissal’. A dismissal will be automatically unfair if the reason for their dismissal is that they have made a ‘protected disclosure’.
Whilst the Tribunal did find that it was “unavoidable” that Stewart was suspended from her job whilst her security clearance was reviewed, they did find that the department had failed to consider her case that she had made protected disclosures and that she should be considered as a “whistleblower”. The Tribunal ruled that the department did not act reasonably when they based the decision to dismiss her on a process which did not engage with the case that she put forward. On this reasoning, the Tribunal found Stewart’s dismissal to be unfair.
This is the first case of its kind to establish that a civil servant could be protected for disclosures made to the media. Stewart’s solicitors described the Judgement as “groundbreaking”.
