The Home Secretary's proscription of Palestine Action has been challenged in the UK Supreme Court this week. The final closed hearing relating to documents and issues the government consider secret is currently ongoing.
I mentioned, earlier in the summer, the Court of Appeal's emphatic deference to the Home Secretary in the case. Watching the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the past couple of days, it did appear as though certain members of the Court were more hostile to the Palestine Action case, presented by Raza Husain KC, than that of the government, handled by James Eadie KC.
Huda Ammori has been live tweeting the arguments.
For this piece, I'm just going to focus on Mr Husain's final closing rebuttal of the government's case, on behalf of Ms Ammori and Palestine Action (PA). He opens by saying he has nine topics to cover. (That gets a bit lost in breaking each topic down into further subpoints as he goes along but I'll try and work with the structure he intended).
1. Alleged Executive Primacy
Considering the statutory framework and James Eadie's (for the Home Secretary) espousal of the idea of executive primacy, there is no indication of that in the statute. The statute gives the Secretary of State a discretion, not the power to do whatever s/he wants. As Amnesty said, this is a paradigm case illustrating proscription is not even close to proportionate.
Parliament could not foresee every circumstance in which a Home Secretary might wish to impose proscription, so made the power subject to the constraints imposed by the Human Rights Act.
2. Outlier actions.
The idea that three actions, including Brize Norton and others, were not outliers is not acceptable or agreeable to PA. The divisional court said these were either outliers or at the end of a spectrum. PA would accept that they were at the end of a spectrum. And it was only that that may have crossed the rubicon of section 1 Terrorism Act 2000 territory.
3. Characterisation of PA.
Mr Husain said he had four points to make on this.
(i) James Eadie pejoratively said PA are a "self styled" direct action group. If you look at the Secretary of State's decision making, there doesn't appear to be a single document that does not refer to PA as a direct action group. They all do. The idea that they are self styled and therefore should be dismissed is ridiculous.
(ii) Violence. The Secretary of State's expert advisors regularly have, explicitly, said PA are highly unlikely to advocate violence and described them as a non-violent direct action group. Violence connected with PA has been very rare, not the norm. Harm and injuries were judged, by these experts, to be the result of unintentional or misjudged actions when trying to evade capture.
Husain got interrupted at that point by Lord Stephens asking "In relation to the Bristol incident which involved a sledgehammer being slammed into the back of a police officer, was that condemned by Palestine Action?" Husain said no it wasn't. There was a back and forth exchange with both appearing irritated with each other and Stephens further pushing "And is it presently condemned by Palestine Action?" Husain says "Mr Justice Johnson's ruling is the subject of a challenge." That is not the norm. Over 5 years and 385 actions, a tiny minority involved violence.
It was very evident that Husain lost Stephens' possible support at that point, if he had not already done so. If these people were not prepared to condemn the serious injury inflicted on a police officer, he is going to give them short shrift.
Husain goes on to offer a collection of references purporting to show violence was never advocated, never encouraged, never promoted. Did it happen? Yes but very rarely. By which he clarifies he means violence against people.
(iii) On PA's 'underground manual', the expert assessment of counter terrorism police in April 2024 was that it was unlikely to trigger a section 58 offence relating to possession of something likely to be useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism.
(iv) Professor David Mead (East Anglia University) has explained that similar protest groups have had manuals. The anti GM crops groups, for example, had a handbook. Professor Rogers (Bradford University) has testified that the anti nuclear group, Trident Ploughshares, used hammers.
4. History and civil disobedience.
The Court of Appeals' characterisation of PA being the antithesis of the "peaceful" suffragettes has been subject to widespread criticism and even derision. Husain made no attempt to criticise the appeal court but he does say he has two short points to make on this.
(i) James Eadie relies on Lord Hoffmann paragraph 89 [Note: I'm not sure what case he is referring to here] on conscientious motivation, civil disobedience goes to discretion, prosecutorial police, sentencing. Eadie asks you to read the following paragraphs. They go to defence. [ Have to admit he lost me at this point, both on the case referred to and the point he was attempting to make].
(ii) Then he got back on track when talking about the notion of PA not being in the "tradition of peaceful persuasion." It would be news to the suffragettes that they were in the business of peaceful persuasion. The UK is a mature democracy. We tolerate groups who have proper conscientious motives, even if they transgress the law. It is not an excuse to do so or a defence but it is relevant in other respects.
5. Article 10 (Freedom of expression).
Paragraphs 38-40 in R v Hallam & Ors [2025] EWCA Crim 199 clarify how the Colston four case applies the European Convention on Human Rights protections during protests.
At this point Husain says he was accused of casuistry (though I'm not sure how it was relevant here) but James Eadie said nothing about the low level of disruptive activities that constituted the vast majority of PA's actions. Illegitimate actions, without conceding anything, cannot be attributed to the group as a whole. That's Primov & Ors v Russia European Court of Human Rights precedent, approved of in the UK Supreme Court in DPP v Ziegler (2021) UKSC 23 paragraph 84."
6. Legitimate aim.
(i) James Eadie argued that the Court's focus should be on the societal benefits of the proscription of PA. Raza Husain said that's the wrong perspective. The Court needs to focus on the domestic instrument of law that the Home Secretary is relying on. The question is whether there is a risk of terrorism not whether it achieves societal benefit. The test for proscription is not: is it good for society. (Though prevention of terrorism is obviously good for society.)
(ii) Some straw manning. Eadie accused him of claiming the Court could only look at three or four Acts. Husain says that is not accurate. The Court can consider any Act relevant where there is a sufficient nexus between the Act and the propensity to commit terrorism or the risk of terrorism.
(iii) Jewish businesses. Andrew Feinstein, son of holocaust survivor, Erika Feinstein (née Hemmer), two term member of South Africa's parliament under Nelson Mandela, has said he would never support PA if they were antisemitic. His conscience would not allow him. PA has never targetted Jewish people or Jewish businesses. It is regrettable that Jews are suffering from increased antisemitism. This has nothing whatsoever to do with PA. The idea that it does they reject in the strongest possible terms.
7. Margin.
He wanted to make three points.
(i) Shvidler UK Supreme Court case from 2025 paragraph 126. No expertise or constitutional role in assessing impact. [Again he lost me here. Shvidler decision says that in deciding whether the measures are proportionate the court has to consider the balance to be struck between two incommensurate values: the Convention rights engaged and the interests of the community relied on to justify interfering with them]
(ii) He is asking the Court to apply the framework to the paucity of evidence here.
(iii) Just asking them to tweak the analysis and focus on what they are referring to - not fair balance, as in Shvidler, but assessment of the national security threat (presumably the threat allegedly posed by PA).
8. Impact.
The government argue that if you concern yourself with terrorism, you open your supporters up to the suite of measures imposed by the Act. Deborah Hinton, 81 year old peaceful placard holder, widow, did not do that. (He then said something about other protests and farant 2 (?) which I didn't quite follow).
9. Closing argument.
PA do not pose a threat to our democracy or public safety. The proscription of PA is not necessary to protect UK citizens or to enable a democratic society to operate without fear, something the President of the Court, Lord Reed, referred to in the ABJ case earlier this year (paragraph 18).
The threat PA posed was essentially to the property of Elbit Systems and its enablers and supporters - those complicit in Israel's genocide.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of people, at least, whose profoundly important rights of political speech, association and assembly on the most acute moral and political issue of modern times, that is to say Israel's annihilation of an already besieged and occupied people and the role of UK based corporate actors in that atrocity, those rights have been extinguished or seriously interfered with.
People cannot say PA were justified in what they did to save lives, from low level disruptive protest to destruction of drones that were the instruments of death. They are silenced from expressing their views on an acutely important matter. They don't consider what PA was doing to be terrorism and my client did not accept that. She challenged it. The test was obviously reasonable belief. She was refused permission.
A crisis of confidence in anti-terrorism law foreseen by Mr Justice Chamberlain has come to pass. It is clear the Home Secretary underestimated the importance of PA and the level of support. [He references something to do with counter terrorism police in April 2025 here but I didn't quite get the significance of the reference. Is it that the CTP suggested that the Home Secretary underestimated the importance of PA or something else?]
Even allowing for such respect as is due to the Home Secretary's assessment of the public interest that proscription is proportionate, he then accordingly invites the Court to allow the appeal and effectively quash the proscription.
President of the Court Lord Reed then thanked all parties for their submissions and noted they have been requested to hear argument based on materials not made public. That hearing was taking place, in private, this afternoon with submissions being made about secret documents that the public, Ms Ammori and most of her legal team are not permitted access to, for national security reasons.
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