In yesterday's post on Judith Collins' brazen cronyism, I said, based on this email [PDF], that Judith Collins had nominated Mapp for his crony-post at the Law Commission. I've since had an interesting discussion with the Ministry of Justice, who handled the nomination. The upshot: while Mapp's details and CV were passed on by Collins, Justice regarded it as a self-nomination. According to them, Mapp basically nominated himself!
I'm going to do some more digging into this. Information in Minister's heads is official information, and subject to the Act even though it is not in written form. So I can ask Collins about the "discussions" referred to in the email, when they took place, and whether Mapp asked her for the job or she asked him to do it. The answer should be fascinating...
(BTW, top marks to the Ministry of Justice, who responded to my OIA in less than 24 hours. That's how it's supposed to work!)
