The Court of Appeal has decided the Home Secretary was right to designate Palestine Action a terrorist organisation.
Press Summary - Huda Ammori v Secretary of State for the Home Department
Appeal No: CA-2026-000583
Neutral Citation Number: [2026] EWCA Civ 721
Apparently, amongst other things, "The Divisional Court... adopted an excessively analytical approach to the interpretation of the Proscription Policy." (Para 88 of the judgment). An appeal court admonishing a lower court for being excessively analytical requires a closer look...
On a first scan, the judgment appeared to be saying a Home Secretary has a licence to do whatever they like, as long as they cite national security as the justification. A close read of the whole thing confirms that impression.
The Court seems to have started with the outcome they wanted and worked backwards from there, focussing on deference to the Home Secretary on matters of national security. Basically they declare the Divisional Court at first instance was wrong because they didn't show sufficient deference to or respect for the Home Secretary; and if it wasn't for that pesky Human Rights Act, they would not have had to go to the trouble of dealing with this nonsense of questioning the government. We don't know what classified evidence they considered in the closed hearing but if the selective quotation of the evidence we do know about is a guide it won't have made a great deal of difference.
Section D of the opinion, paras 21-32, is quite a nice summary of how wide ranging and wide reaching the Terrorism Act 2000 is. It really does vastly over specify what might count as terrorism to a degree most people are not aware of. As the UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights pointed out to the Court and multiple human rights experts have made clear over the years, the Act's definition of terrorism is excessively broad and wrongly conflates ordinary criminal acts with terrorism, in breach of UN standards.
Moving rapidly on to paragraph 48, Lady Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, CJ (delivering the judgment of the court) says:
The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre JTAC report did state that Palestine Action (PA) could be considered terrorists under the wide definition of terrorism in the 2000 Act but also emphasised that PA stressed its non-violent action against people.
Onwards to paragraph 81, the Appeal Court judges consider that when policies include awkward details that might interfere with what a Home Secretary wants to do they should not be "read in a complicated or excessively analytical way". Policies "are not rules, but guides" and they are not there to constrain the Home Secretary.
Paragraph 87 & 88 - Even if the Divisional Court was right that the policy constrained the Home Secretary, she could still consider operational benefits. So is it ok for a Home Secretary to proscribe an organisation if the operational benefits amount to government, political, policing or other public service convenience?
Paragraph 104 - The Court would not be reviewing the Home Secretary's decision at all if not for the Human Rights Act. But since they have to, they "must... respect... the balance of rights... struck by the Home Secretary".
Section M of the judgment, para 104 to 117 on the margin of appreciation rejects Liberty, Amnesty International and UN special rapporteur on human rights submission to the Court, emphasising government and Home Secretary perspectives on national security should be deferred to.
Section N, para 118 to 182, on the Court's evaluation of the proportionality of proscription again is about deferring to the Home Secretary on national security. When the Home Secretary designates an organisation terrorists, proscription is proportionate.
In paragraph 152, agreeing with the Divisional Court, the appeal judges quickly dismiss the plight of the thousands of pensioners arrested for terrorism offences while protesting the genocide and the proscription of Palestine Action. People opposing genocide and supporting Palestine Action "ought to have realised" they were wrong.
The judgment then basically says, at paragraph 153, that "many people may be subject to [a] chilling effect" but that chilling effect is not real if there is no legal jeopardy. I'll be blunt here. That is simply illogical.
At paragraph 164 Palestine Action are judged to have "little or nothing in common with the suffragettes or the anti-apartheid or Iran War protest groups" and the Home Secretary & her advisers are best placed to assess them as "a threat to third party individuals and property".
Para 171 to 174 says proscribing Palestine Action degrades the organisation and its finances - a "key benefit" - and the Home Secretary was best placed to make that decision given matters of national security.
At para 175 the Court say they looked at all materials available to the Home Secretary, open and classified and "are satisfies that the Proscription Decision was a justified and proportionate interference with ECHR rights."
There is one small dent in the Court's absolute deference to the Home Secretary at paragraph 180 where they admit that the Home Secretary's proscription decision "may have been borderline."
But that doesn't matter because she had the latitude to make the decision and she was right...
They then conclude the Home Secretary should be deferred to on matters of national security or matters she decides to be national security related. The Divisional Court erred on interpreting the proscription policy and on assessing proportionality. Palestine Action are correctly designated terrorists.
In light of this Court of Appeal decision it is worth reading the JTAC proscription assessment report on the group. JTAC specifically state their assessment that Palestine Action is a terrorist group is entirely based on the broad definition of terrorism in the 2000 Act which considers criminal damage to property to be terrorism.
The overriding impression, as I noted above, is of a court that started out with the outcome it decided it wanted and worked back from there to mould their reasoning to that outcome; the core theme being absolute deference to the government and the Home Secretary, in particular, when it comes to matters of national security. It is a license for government to cite national security as an excuse for any action. I've taken to considering it the Home Secretary's national security blanket.
For what it is worth,
I oppose genocide.
I do not support Palestine Action.
Unlike the Appeal Court judges, I remain unconvinced that proscription in this case is proportionate.
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