Discovery Analytical Resourcing

Huda Ammori v Secretary of State
   for the Home Department

   Judicial Review - The Proceedings

 26-27 November 2025 & 2 December 2025

     by Nick King

Although arranged to take place over three consecutive days beginning 25 November 2025, the first morning session allocated for the judicial review of the Home Secretary's proscription Order of Palestine Action hosted a couple of unanticipated modifications. Justice Chamberlain was presiding over an application from the Home Secretary for an order postponing publication of reporting of certain matters that might prejudice the integrity of proceedings in progress at Woolwich Crown Court and additional specified future prosecutions. Those current proceedings concerned some activists involved in Palestine Action's intervention at Elbit's production facility in Filton, near Bristol, in August 2024.

The application was contested by a range of media, before an agreed formulation was reached following consultation with their representatives present. That order may be accessed here. The ensuing paragraphs have been constructed subject to the parameters of the order.

The accompanying unexpected development was the nomination of three judges to succeed Justice Chamberlain to preside over the judicial review, an unprecedented development attracting speculation as to its procedural motivation. Lady Justice Victoria Sharp, Justice Jonathan Swift and Lady Justice Karen Steyn were appointed to hear the case over three days, an additional day on Tuesday, 2 December 2025, being appended to compensate for time devoted to generating the reporting restrictions order.

Proceedings

Four grounds progressed from Huda Ammori's application challenging the proscription order:

1. Ground 2 - proscription of Palestine Action amounts to an unlawful interference with Article 10 and/or Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protect the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of assembly and association.
2. Ground 5 - the Secretary of State misconstrued Palestine Action's raison d'être and failed to assess reasonably the impact that application of the measures entailed by proscription would have on the group's activities and wider pro-Palestinian solidarity.
3. Ground 6 - the Secretary of State has failed to apply her published policy, which requires her to take into account the nature and scale of an organisation’s activities and evaluate its specific threat to a range of British interests.
4. Ground 8 - the Secretary of State acted in breach of a duty to consult Palestine Action, overriding the organisation's rights under ECHR Article 6 to a fair hearing.

Ammori's submissions to the court had defined Palestine Action (PA) as a movement dedicated to ending complicity with the business of Israel's genocidal and apartheid regime scattered about the United Kingdom. PA was founded in 2020 in the tradition of direct action that stepped past reliance on fruitless petitioning for state intervention to focus on addressing incidences at source. It was likely, then, to engage in expression of ideas that could "offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population". Intelligence agencies' reports monitoring the impact of the group's activities began taking an elevated interest from around mid-2024 until culminating on 23 June 2025 in the Secretary of State's laying before Parliament the proscription Order banning PA as a terrorist organisation.

Defending for the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD), Sir James Eadie KC had advanced that, since there was nowhere an agreed definition of what constituted terrorism, prevailing adjudication should lie with statutory legislation, articulated through the terrorism acts. Under sections 1 and 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000, PA had been accused of committing serious damage to property, designed to intimidate a section of the public or influence the government, for the purpose of advancing a political cause. Parliament intended catchment of the definition of terrorism to be broad, it was asserted, and the SSHD was not otherwise bound to consider the proportion of PA's activities that could be connected in terrorism.

Necessary in a Democratic Society

For Ammori, Raja Hussain KC contended that section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 operated as a critical constraint for precisely those reasons: the expansiveness of the definition of terrorism; the breadth of circumstances that could be cast as 'terroristic' in character; and property damage elevated to be a stand-alone, terrorist activity. It must be for the Court, both legally and constitutionally, properly to decide the balance of individual rights and public interest, as it must be for procedural fairness.

Owen Greenhall, acting for the Claimant, presented the legal case for breach of Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. Supported by a range of precedents having passed before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Greenhall argued:
  - that direct action has been established within the remit of Articles 10 and 11 (Barraco v France 31684/05, 2009);
  - that a high level of protection for political expression attached to Article 10 where addressing war crimes (Novaya Gazeta v Russia 11884/22, 2025);
  - that regarding national security, the State should ascertain a proportionate balance between freedom of expression and restrictions imposed through a 'pressing social need' (Sabuncu v Turkey 23199/17, 2020);
  - that observation of any potential 'chilling effect' is essential for assessment of the proportionality of restrictions on Article 10 rights.

Against these pleadings, the Defence responded that Article 17 of the ECHR denied protection for any action aimed at the destruction or degradation of Convention rights - an organisation involved in terrorism as prescribed by law, such as PA, could not evade this bar. The circularity in that line of reasoning did not pass unnoticed by Justice Swift, in response to which Eadie iterated that the position should be considered after proscription. It was further argued (relying on ECtHR proceedings Kudrevicius v Lithuania (37553/05, 2015), and Taranenko v Russia (19544/05, 2014)) that protections under Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR should not extend to proscribed organisations committing serious property damage.