Palestine Action Wins Terror Ban Challenge As Judge Cites ECHR and Says Group Has Only Done a Bit of Terrorism
Palestine Action has won a legal challenge against the Home Office’s decision to ban it as a terror group, with the judge citing the European Convention on Human Rights and saying the group has not yet engaged in enough terrorism to warrant a ban. The Telegraph has more.
The ban, which began on July 5th last year, made being a member of the group or supporting it a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The group has taken responsibility for numerous incidents of vandalism, trespass and theft, often targeting firms it claims have links to Israel.
However, after a seven-month court battle launched by the group’s co-founder, the High Court has now ruled the ban was “disproportionate”.
The decision means that more than 2,000 people who were arrested for holding signs or displaying messages in support of the group may now have proceedings dropped.
Dame Victoria Sharp said: “The court considered that the proscription of Palestine Action was disproportionate.
“The nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, said she was “disappointed” with the decision, which the Government will appeal against.
She said: “The court has acknowledged that Palestine Action has carried out acts of terrorism, celebrated those who have taken part in those acts and promoted the use of violence.
“It has also concluded that Palestine Action is not an ordinary protest or civil disobedience group, and that its actions are not consistent with democratic values and the rule of law.”
Palestine Action remains banned as a terror group to allow for further legal arguments and to give the Government time to consider its appeal. …
The High Court ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action involved “very significant interference” with protesters’ rights under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). …
In its judgment, the court concluded: “Considering in the round the evidence available to the Home Secretary when the decision to proscribe was made, the nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities, so far as they comprise acts of terrorism, has not yet reached the level, scale and persistence that would justify the application of the criminal law measures that are the consequence of proscription, and the very significant interference with Convention rights consequent on those measures.” …
The Palestine Action ruling could significantly reduce the Home Secretary’s ability to proscribe terrorist groups, the Home Office will argue in its legal challenge to Friday’s ruling.
Lawyers for Shabana Mahmood will point to the judges’ own verdict on Palestine Action to justify the Government’s ban on the group.
The Home Office noted, for example, that the court had found Palestine Action “has organised and undertaken actions amounting to terrorism”. The group had also not suggested these actions were a mistake or aberration but had “lauded” those who took part.
The Home Office also pointed to the finding by the judges that the picture Palestine Action sought to paint of “an ordinary protest group engaged in activities that fall within the well-established tradition of peaceful protest” was “not accurate”.
It noted that the court also dismissed suggestions that the attacks by the group on lawful businesses were “civil disobedience” and rulings that Palestine Action was not a non-violent organisation and promoted the use of violence.
What an utterly ludicrous decision – not enough terrorism yet! – and a flagrant violation of Parliamentary sovereignty. Who’s in charge here, the elected Government and legislature, or unelected Left-wing judges?
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I’m shocked. Truly shocked at the ruling. Well, maybe not that shocked. We’ve already found out that hitting people with sledgehammers is pretty much okay, so I guess it follows on.
As long as you are using the sledgehammers against the elite proscribed people.
The left-wing theory about this (as officially voiced by the German party Die Linke) is that this is indeed very much ok provided the people who wield the sledgehammers are really convinced that they’re attacking “Nazis” and that sentencing the attackers to prison for this would be “suppression of dissent” by an increasingly fascist state and society.
Sounds about par for the course. You just have to believe your victim is a Nazi, they don’t necessarily have to be one…
Literally pants-on-head, pencils-up-nose wibbling insanity.
Well, if I was Jewish I would equate this moment with the brass plaques on the park benches of Vienna…
This judgement is yet another sign that the British state is disintegrating from within, and that the disintegration is accelerating.
The accused only did a bit of Murder, the accused only did a bit of Child rape. We really are in the Upside down now.
I think the message from our betters is you are ok to kill, maime, rob, abuse, rape, steal, act corruptly as long as its too the approved group of people, that would be the Jewish population, the White British law abiding population who work, white little girls. Yes you can do what you like to those groups and the the State will understand. Obvs if you say so much as a word of disagreement with the protected classes, that’s Islamists, Migrants, the middle classes supporting the wiping out of the Jews and Infitada on the West, the death supporters at both ends of the indigenous people spectrum, then watch out Big borther and Sister in the Establishment will spare no rod to destroy you,
So if you did fancy a bit of thievery etc be assured if you do it on the despised sectors you will be forgiven.
Whose in charge …un-elected left wing judges, doing Soros’ bidding…….
I see the court case lasted 7 months….who is paying for that…….it must be a fortune, by now.
Whether or not the organisation is proscribed, its members still need to be held accountable for the criminal acts they committed in its name.
The “judge” Dame Victoria Sharp said she will retire in October 2026, so it seems she’s happy to cause as much elitist damage as possible to the Indigenous British public and country she loathes, even though they have paid her salary for the whole of her career, as well as her lavish pension afterward.
Is there anything complimentary one can say about the current crop of weak wet senior judges, at least in the 1930s they seemed more robust, who are prepared to ignore the weekly hate marches, deliberately intended to be as intimidatory as possible
I agree actually, this bunch of clucking fowns should never have been dignified with being banned.
Their acts of criminal damage should be punished of course but this bunch of limp wristed humanities students are more of a danger to themselves than to anybody else. Cosplaying as revolutionaries before heading off to an ethnic cafe for an organic lactose free cappuccino and quinoa.
These tossers yes but the IRGC no?
Clownworld.
Another decision that is unbelievable but entirely predictable.
We are in the grip of the Blob who hate Britain and love terrorism.
“The Shadow Over Justice
Labour’s Sinister Plot to Erase the Past and Control the Future”
https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/article/shadow-over-justice#:~:text=The%20Shadow%20Over,Control%20the%20Future
An important and well researched article which is a perfect accompaniment to this sad, sad tale.
Worth reading in full.
Thanks for the link.
Wrt to jury trials, I think the link to grooming gangs is a bit weak. But an outcome of Lammy’s proposed reforms would be that people accused of speech offences in the wake of some high-profile crime, eg, the Southport murders, would no longer have a right to a jury trial and hence, it wouldn’t be necessary to trick them into random guilty pleas anymore to avoid them eventually being acquitted via applied common sense by a jury. I think that’s a more likely political motivation. At least if there’s a political motivation beyond (Labour) law experts’ general disdain for unkempt commoners and a desire to reduce their influence as much as possible.
If you want to comment, then you have to do it here, as DT is not allowing comments on this or the commentator article 🤷🏻♀️
This highlights the need to abolish the Supreme Court and make Parliament the highest court, as it was before Blair. There’s a 50% chance the Supreme Court will agree that a bit of terrorism is OK.
Before Blair, the law lords from the house of lords were the final court of appeal.
Absolutely all of blair’s constitutional vandalism needs to be undone on day one.
Dame Victory Sharp should now be asked to spell out in detail what the precise “level, scale and persistence of terrorist actions” which would warrant proscription actually is and additionally, which law defines this.
If she cannot do this, which is very likely the case, her verdict is just a political opinion about an action of the government and the judiciary is not supposed to enforce the political opinions of its members. That’s the job of parliament and government.
Yeah, I mean come on guys, give terrorism a chance…
Words fail me.
Dame Victoria Sharp….”Not yet reached a level to warrant proscription.” But woe-betide you if send a hurty tweet, then dire prognostications will surely befall you,
Why am I not surprised? It’s one in the many many reasons why I am planning to leave the country.
No justice, especially for white people.
as far as I’m concerned, they can do what they like, I am through with being a whipping boy for the globalists and their thralls
People saying they don’t care if asylum hotels are burned down get 31 months.
People who hold up placards calling Judges and government corrupt get jailed.
People who publicly say “It’s okay to be white” get jailed.
vs
People who actually call for the “slitting of throats” of others get nothing.
People who break into and smash up businesses get nothing.
People who swing a sledgehammer into a police officer’s back don’t get convicted.
.
.
This is Right vs Left in modern Britain.
The civil war has already started. I don’t know why some can’t see this.
.
Just for the sake of example, let’s assume a bunch of English football fans form an organization called Reconquer Birmingham, hold a dozen noisy public demonstrations, vandalize a mosque and two barber shops by spraying slogans onto the walls and breaking some windows and finally, a member of the group is caught carrying a suspicious device in the vicinity of an Eid celebration, what would the likely outcome be? Further, what’s the chance of it ever getting to the final point without the exact same outcome already having happened after one of the earlier events? Lastly, assuming some of the former members launched an appeal to the supreme court in the grounds that their humans rights had been violated, what would Dame Victoria Sharp have to say to that?
To ask the question is to answer it.
But my point is it’s one thing to criminalise and punish certain acts, quite another to proscribe an organisation and use that as a pretext for arresting anybody who expresses sympathy for said organisation. The bar needs to be set pretty high.
For example at present AFAIK the IRGC is not a proscribed organisation and it should be, of course.
Obviously the sleghammer guy should have gone down for at least 10 years.
That’s an entirely different conversation: Whether or not the law in question should exist at all and what the precise conditions for proscribing an organization should be are both political questions which ultimately have to be decided by votes in parliament and people who disagree with the outcome of such a vote need to work towards having it annulled or change by another vote.
The job of a court is to decide if a particular something is compliant with existing law and this is supposed to be based on explicit, logically sound reasoning third parties can understand and verify. They’re not supposed to usurp the crown prerogative of mercy, that is, selectively disapply laws based on special circumstances of the person or persons who broke it.
Seems odd that the protesters rights are infringed by preventing them from expressing support for a terrorist group.
There was nothing to stop them calling out their support for the underlying cause, or publicly disagreeing with the decision to proscribe.
This is clearly a court substituting it’s opinion for that of a minister.
Seems to be a judgement ripe for overturning.
Except it won’t be overturned because the next set of judges will have the same views as this one. And will base their decision on their views.
Unelected left wing judges are in charge.
When tested in court, jury nullification may well prevent prosecutions, this is the reason why jury trials are so important, true democracy. This is likely the core reason why the Starmer junta wants to end them.
Be very careful what you wish for: tomorrow you may be the one proscribed as being a terrorist and there will be no jury trial to see the inappropriateness of the law and charge.