Government defends Palestine Action ban after High Court ruled it unlawful

Government defends Palestine Action ban after High Court ruled it unlawful8 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleDominic CascianiHome and legal correspondent, Court of Appeal, LondonPA MediaPalestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in 2025The government has defended its ban on Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation, two months after the High Court ruled it was unlawful.A rare five-judge panel at the Court of Appeal is considering whether February's decision to reject Palestine Action's proscription should stand.Opening a three-day defence of the home secretary's proscription of the group, barristers told the Court of Appeal on Tuesday that overturning it would limit ministers' counter-terrorism powers.The government's lawyer also told the court Palestine Action was "not Hamas or the IRA, where there is an almost unique overlap between those who are engaged in the terrorist activity and those who support it".He had been asked by the second most senior judge in England and Wales, Sir Geoffrey Vos, if he accepted that the ban was legally unusual because of its impact on the right to protest by otherwise legitimate demonstrators.Sir James Eadie KC said: "The rights of those who would otherwise wish to support Palestine Action are affected... maybe they don't even support the more extreme activities and/or wing of Palestine Action."But the whole nature and structure of the proscription regime is designed to recognise that there is value in preventing precisely that sort of support."He also told the court that Parliament had given ministers discretion over how to take such decisions once there had been an expert finding that an organisation was "concerned in terrorism"."Parliament was alive to the fact that those powers conferred on the secretary of state were significant powers," Sir James told the judges."Palestine Action met the statutory definition of...