Birnberg Peirce submitted the judicial review claim on behalf of Ms Huda Ammori, a 31-year-old woman of Palestinian and Iraqi heritage and one of the founders of Palestine Action. Supporting witness statements have been submitted by human rights experts Amnesty International, Liberty, and the European Legal Support Centre about concerns about the unlawful misuse of anti-terror measures to criminalise dissent and the impact of any proscription on fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression and rights to protest.

This comes as a senior civil servant speaks out about concerns about the proposal within the Home Office and the Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy KC – founding head of Keir Starmer’s own chambers, Doughty Street Chambers – describes it as “extraordinary” and “going down the old Trump road”, with the Labour peer, former Justice Minister Lord Falconer and member of Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet also stating that the action at RAF Brize Norton would not justify proscription.

The claim seeks to quash any decision to proscribe Palestine Action and any resulting order putting this into effect on the following grounds: ultra vires/improper purpose; error of law; irrationality; consideration of irrelevant factors/failure to consider relevant factors; breach of policy; breach of the Human Rights Act 1998; discrimination and Public Sector Equality Duty; and breach of natural justice.

The Home Secretary’s decision to rush the order through Parliament, by laying the draft order today, Monday 30 June and holding the votes on Wednesday 2 July, could see the order come into effect as soon as Friday 4 July. The application requests interim relief to prevent the Home Secretary from bringing any order into force until Mr Justice Chamberlain has made his ruling, which could be handed down on Friday or in the following weeks, with the submission urging that the “order must not be made and/or not come into effect until her [the claimant’s] challenge is heard and determined”.

Interim relief may involve an injunction prohibiting the Home Secretary from making the order, after any Parliamentary approval, pending determination of the Claimant’s legal challenge.

Palestine Action push back

The Claimant’s lawyers had written last week to the Home Secretary to request that she refrain from laying her order seeking to proscribe Palestine Action until the substantive issues raised in the pre-action correspondence had been addressed, but the Secretary of State has not, to date, agreed to that course of action. The court has promptly directed an urgent hearing to consider the requested interim relief pending the determination of the judicial review.

Palestine Action’s lawyers argue that “irreparable harm would flow from a proscription order coming into effect”, not just to the Claimant or to Palestine Action but to its many thousands of supporters in the general public, who would be “left with no means of seeking relief against unlawful executive decision-making”. This risks a breach of natural justice and procedural fairness and the right of access to court under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights by allowing “the Home Secretary to formulate an order in such a way as to effectively oust judicial review through the timing of the order”.

They contend that “there has been a failure of the duty to inform the Claimant of the basis on which it is proposed to restrict her rights through proscription” and to “afford her the opportunity to make representations before any decision to restrict her rights”. The submission also states that while “extensive consultation has taken place with the Israeli Government and arms companies…. no opportunity has been provided for other groups affected or concerned by the proposal to proscribe Palestine Action, including Liberty, Amnesty International and other civil society organisations”.

‘Spraying red paint is not terrorism’

Commenting on the court’s decision to grant the urgent hearing, the claimant and co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, said:

The court’s decision to grant an urgent hearing this week is indicative of the vital importance of what is at stake in this case, including the far-reaching implications any proscription of Palestine Action would have on fundamental freedoms of speech, expression and assembly in Britain. This is the first attempt in British history to criminalise direct action, political protest, as terrorism, mimicking many authoritarian regimes around the world who have used counter-terrorism to crush dissent. This would set an extremely dangerous precedent, with repressive impacts right across the Palestine movement.

I have been left with no choice but to request this urgent hearing and to seek either an injunction or other form of interim relief because of the Home Secretary’s decision to try to steamroll this through Parliament immediately, without proper opportunity for MPs and Peers to debate and scrutinise the proposal, or for legal and human rights experts and civil society organisations to make representations, or for those of us who would be denied fundamental rights as a result and criminalised as ‘terrorists’ overnight, including the many thousands of people who support Palestine Action. The only groups we know the Home Secretary has consulted is the Israeli Embassy, the arms companies we’ve disrupted, and pro-Israel lobby groups such as We Believe in Israel claiming this proposal is a “direct result” of their representations to Government to have us banned.

Spraying red paint on war planes is not terrorism. Causing disruption to the UK-based arms factories used by Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems, is not terrorism. The terrorism and war crimes are being committed in Palestine by Israel, which is being armed by Britain, and benefitting from British military support. Direct action has a long history in Britain – Suffragettes, Anti-Apartheid activists, Greenham Common and anti-Iraq War campaigners, including those who defended by the Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself for using the same direct action methods he is now seeking to proscribe as ‘terrorism’.

Featured image via the Canary