Fate of hundreds arrested for alleged Palestine Action support in limbo if challenge to ban is blocked, court told | Palestine Action

The destiny of tons of of individuals arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Motion will stay in limbo if a authorized problem to the group’s proscription is blocked, the court docket of enchantment has heard.The House Workplace requested the court docket on Thursday to overturn a choose’s determination to grant the Palestine Motion co-founder Huda Ammori a judicial overview of the ban, which positioned it alongside the likes of Islamic State and the neo-Nazi group Nationwide Motion.Sir James Eadie KC, representing the House Workplace, mentioned the excessive court docket’s determination was flawed as a result of there was already a mechanism to problem proscription by interesting to the house secretary after which the Proscribed Organisations Enchantment Fee (Poac).He mentioned in written submissions that there was “nothing distinctive in regards to the respondent’s [Ammori’s] case that justifies permitting her to keep away from the statutory scheme”.However Raza Husain KC, representing Ammori, argued that the case was “distinctive”.The house secretary has 90 days to reply to a problem to proscription underneath the Terrorism Act earlier than the Poac course of can start. Husain mentioned that Mr Justice Chamberlain, sitting on the excessive court docket, was proper to lift issues that Poac wouldn’t hear the case till the center of subsequent 12 months, whereas a judicial overview may happen within the autumn. It has been scheduled for 25 to 27 November.In in search of a judicial overview, Husain mentioned his shopper relied on “the distinctive nature of the case: the proscription of a protest group with widespread in style help; and the extreme detriments that might movement from the Poac route on these info, together with: the continuing and irremediable chilling of speech and meeting within the interim; the delayed willpower of a matter related to ongoing prison instances; and the truth that the Poac route provides no treatment to the tons of of individuals already arrested for offences associated to help for PA [Palestine Action]”.Greater than 1,600 individuals have been arrested for allegedly expressing help for Palestine Motion for the reason that ban got here into power on 5 July, of whom 138 have been charged.Husain mentioned Ammori can be asking the excessive court docket for an order – which Poac couldn’t make – quashing the ban, “with the end result that any police enforcement in respect of offences underneath TA [Terrorism Act] 2000 in respect of PA (together with arrests, fees and convictions) can be nullities”.Requested by the judges what he thought would occur to individuals arrested for supporting Palestine Motion if Poac de-proscribed the group, Eadie mentioned there was “not a transparent and apparent reply”. He recommended that offences for supporting Palestine Motion previous to any overturning of the ban may nonetheless stand.“Parliament has designed the scheme in order that the jurisdiction of Poac is not any totally different to that of the excessive court docket in order that there will be no suggestion of there being any benefit in continuing with judicial overview proceedings reasonably than a statutory enchantment,” Eadie mentioned.Talking earlier than the listening to, Ammori referred to as it an “alarming try to forestall judicial scrutiny” of the “excessive and unprecedented determination” to proscribe the group.The panel of three judges, led by the girl chief justice, Sue Carr, mentioned they hoped to provide a judgment subsequent month.