On Thursday 25 September the Home Office attempted to overturn the High Court ruling of 30 July that granted a full judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action.

Palestine Action: Home Office attempts to overturn permission for judicial review

The High Court granted permission for the legal challenge of the ban on grounds that it breaches freedom of expression and assembly, and that the home secretary’s failure to consult those affected by the ban contravenes the right to natural justice. If successful, the legal challenge would quash the ban on the protest group.

Previous home secretary Yvette Cooper decided to pursue an appeal on this. This would prevent the courts reviewing the legality of the ban, despite the High Court’s warning that “different and possibly conflicting decisions” before different judges and juries arising out of prosecutions following mass arrests would be a “recipe for chaos”. Justice Chamberlain concluded that:

there is a strong public interest in allowing the legality of the order to be determined authoritatively as soon as possible.

Time to ‘bin the ban’ on Palestine Action

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammorri sought to cross-appeal the grounds that the High Court refused on 30 July. The grounds are as follows:

Ground 1: That Yvette Cooper had acted for an improper political purpose rather than in the interests of national security.Ground 5: That Cooper erred in giving weight to the views of Israel, to questions of financial loss and to other stated factors in concluding terrorism.Ground 6: That Cooper failed to give weight to the need to oppose Genocide.Ground 7: The fact that only 3 of 387 actions were deemed to be terrorist according to the Terrorism Act 2000 by the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said:

The police have not been able to arrest everyone who has resisted this draconian ban by peacefully holding cardboard signs, so it has already proved to be unenforceable. It’s time for the government to bin that ban, and start taking action to prevent genocide instead, including brining an immediate end to the weapons of death leaving from factories in this country.

Proscription has had a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech and the right to protest

The claimant, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, said:

It’s deeply troubling that the previous Home Secretary decided to try to stop a full legal review of her widely condemned decision to ban a protest group as a ‘terrorist’ organisation for the first time in British history.

When leading legal figures, from the United Nations, Amnesty International to a former Director of Public Prosecutions, as well as voices from across the political spectrum – including the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members – have condemned the ban as authoritarian, this alarming attempt to prevent judicial scrutiny of her extreme and unprecedented decision will spark further outcry.

Just over 100 people had been arrested when the High Court warned of “a recipe for chaos” in the criminal courts if the legality of the ban was not determined authoritatively through a Judicial Review as soon as possible. Now that number has soared to over 1,600 people, with thousands more due to risk arrest in a series of mass actions starting on Sunday, it would be reckless in the extreme for the new Home Secretary to continue these delaying tactics.

This monumental waste of taxpayers’ money is pushing an already overburdened court system towards collapse as thousands of ordinary people – priests, pensioners, retired healthcare workers and teachers – are dragged through the courts for holding signs saying they oppose Israel’s genocide and the ban on Palestine Action, in entirely pointless prosecutions which may be unlawful.

A successful appeal would not only shield an unlawful ban from scrutiny – it would deny justice to thousands of people whose fundamental free speech rights have been violated by this ban. This affects not only the thousands who have defied Palestine Action’s ban but the countless others who the High Court identifies as being impacted by the chilling effect the ban has on legitimate speech about Israel’s genocide and the British Government’s complicity in these horrific crimes against humanity.

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