Palestine Action can challenge terror ban after government loses appeal
Palestine Action's co-founder can proceed with a legal challenge against the Government over the group's ban as a terror organisation, the Court of Appeal has ruled, as it dismissed a Home Office appeal.
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Huda Ammori took taking legal action against former home secretary Yvette Cooper's decision to proscribe the group under anti-terror laws.
The ban, which began on July 5, made membership of, or support for, the direct action group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Mr Justice Chamberlain later cleared Ms Ammori to proceed with a challenge over the ban after finding that two arguments put forward on her behalf were "reasonably arguable".
Following the ruling, Ms Ammori described it as a "landmark victory" and that the government's branding of the protest group as 'terrorists' had "backfired spectacularly".
In September, the Home Office brought a challenge against this decision to the Court of Appeal in London.
At a hearing last month, barristers for the Home Office said Ms Ammori could bring her legal challenge to the Home Secretary and then the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), rather than the High Court for a "judicial review".
Lawyers for Ms Ammori said the POAC was not the only suitable place to challenge the lawfulness of a ban.
More than 2,000 people have been arrested since Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation, according to campaign group Defend Our Juries.
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'Backfired spectacularly'
Ms Ammori said: "This is a landmark victory: not only against one of the most extreme attacks on civil liberties in recent British history, but for the fundamental principle that Government ministers can and must be held accountable when they act unlawfully.
"The Government's effort to avoid judicial scrutiny of its blatantly anti-democratic proscription - branding a protest group as 'terrorists' for the first time in British history - has backfired spectacularly, and we now head into the judicial review in November with an even stronger legal footing.
"Arresting peaceful protesters and those disrupting the arms trade is a dangerous misuse of counter-terror resources, with over 2,000 people having now been arrested - a staggering 3,100% increase in counter-terror arrests.
"Rather than being used to protect the public, the Terrorism Act is being used as a political tool to silence them.
"This ban doesn't just affect Palestine Action supporters - it casts a chilling shadow over anyone speaking out against Israel's atrocities and the UK's complicity in them, and sets a dangerous precedent that can be used against any protest group.
"It's time for the Government to listen to the overwhelming and mounting backlash - including from the United Nations, human rights watchdogs and free speech defenders to the former Director of Public Prosecutions, as well as the vast majority of its own Party members and voices across the political spectrum - and lift this widely condemned, utterly Orwellian ban."
In a summary of the decision, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said: "An application to deproscribe, with right of appeal to POAC (the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission) was not intended to be a means of challenging the initial decision."
She added: "Judicial review would be a quicker means of challenging the order proscribing Palestine Action than applying to deproscribe.
"Judicial review would enable the High Court to give an authoritative judgment on whether or not it was lawful to proscribe Palestine Action.
"That judgment could then be relied on in criminal courts hearing charges against any person arrested in connection with their support of Palestine Action."