Palestine Action wins right to judicial review of its terrorism proscription

The High Court has ruled that terrorist group Palestine Action should be allowed to challenge the Government’s decision to proscribe it, with government lawyers denied permission to appeal the ruling.

Mr Justice Chamberlain accepted the group’s argument that it had a right to a judicial review of the decision, which will take place in November. He rejected the government’s argument that there was a POAC (Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission) expressly for use in such cases, saying that a POAC would be unlikely to be held into the middle of next year, while a judicial review was likely to be held more quickly.

Citing cases of recent arrests by the police of people supporting the Palestinian cause, he said that he considered it “reasonably arguable that the proscription order amounts to a disproportionate interference with the article 10 [freedom of expression] and article 11 [freedom of Assembly] rights [under the European Convention if Human Rights] of the claimant and others.”

Another reason the High Court justice gave for granting the judicial review was that it was reasonable to argue that Palestine Action should have been consulted by the government before it was proscribed, which the government had failed to do.

Founded five years ago, Palestine Action has carried out a wave of attacks across the UK, particularly over the last two years. Many of their targets have been the UK branches of Israeli defence firms, but the group has also targeted Jewish charities with Israeli links. In May it vandalised a Jewish business premises in the heart of Stamford Hill which the group claimed had leased a UK site to an Israeli defence company.

The group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation after two of its members broke into an RAF base last month, filming themselves vandalising military planes. The infiltration of the base caused major embarrassment to the government, and a report from The Telegraph at the time of a Palestine Action meeting suggested that the group was planning to target further military bases across the UK.

The High Court challenge meant that Home Office memoranda from earlier this year were revealed, in which officials suggested that there were no current laws capable with dealing with the group as a whole, stating that “existing legislation is seen as insufficient to address high-level offences… meaning the network can only be dealt with on a case-by-case basis in response to isolated incidents of direct action.”

The Guardian reported that the Home Secretary had initially decided to ban Palestine Action in March, before reversing course two days later and asking for further information on the group’s activities.