A ‘Stitch-Up’: Palestine Action Case Gets New Judges

The judge due to rule on whether the proscription of Palestine Action is lawful has been swapped last minute for a panel that includes a judge with a long history of working for the government and another who ruled in favour of the UK selling parts for fighter jets to Israel, leading to accusations of a “stitch-up”. 

The original judge billed to preside over the high court judicial review, Sir Martin Chamberlain, has been pulled at short notice and replaced with a three-person panel of judges: Dame Victoria Sharp, Dame Karen Steyn and Sir Jonathan Swift. 

Chamberlain made the decision in July to grant Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori permission to take the government to judicial review in what was a historic first for a proscribed organisation. Replacing a judge so close to the hearing date (in this case, last Wednesday) is unusual, although Chamberlain was also replaced in the legal challenge to the UK’s sale of parts for F-35 fighter jets to Israel in June, a case he had also granted permission for. 

Cases are usually allocated by internal court processes or senior judges. Chamberlain was consistently confirmed as the judge presiding over the judicial review in court documents and correspondence as recently as 17 November. A source familiar with the matter told Novara Media that Chamberlain has no scheduling conflicts. 

The judiciary press office refused to comment on Chamberlain’s replacement when approached by the Guardian. 

A spokesperson for campaign group Defend Our Juries (DOJ), which has organised mass demonstrations against the Palestine Action ban, told Novara Media that in a case of such national significance, the public “deserves transparency, not backroom manoeuvres to cherry-pick judges” and that Chamberlain’s last minute removal without explanation “makes it hard not to draw the conclusion that this is a stitch-up”.

One of the judges on the new panel is Sir Jonathan Swift. Swift is perhaps best known for rejecting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s appeal against extradition to the US in June 2023, ruling in favour of then-home secretary Priti Patel’s decision. 

Swift has a long history of working for the British state. He was the government’s top lawyer – a position called ‘first treasury counsel’ – from 2006 to 2014, in which he advised and represented the government in major litigation, representing the defence and home secretaries in at least nine cases. He also acted for the Cabinet Office, Treasury and justice secretary during this period and represented the Foreign Office in at least two cases in 2011 and 2015, according to an investigation by Declassified UK. The government paid him nearly £1m to represent it from 2010 to 2013. 

More recently, in June 2022, Swift ruled in favour of the government over the controversial ‘Rwanda plan’, saying that deportation flights of asylum seekers should be allowed to proceed. He said the risk posed to refugees was “in the realms of speculation”. 

Another judge now heading up the judicial review is Dame Karen Steyn, who in June ruled that the government’s decision to allow the export of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel during the genocide in Gaza was lawful. This ruling came despite the government itself accepting that the F-35 parts could be used to commit or facilitate violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. 

Steyn and Stephen Males replaced Chamberlain was replaced as the judge in this case, and they rejected the challenge brought by West Bank-based NGO Al-Haq, finding that the UK’s participation in the F-35 programme is a matter for the electorate and not the courts. 

The new panel’s head judge is Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the King’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice since 2019 and the most senior judge in the administrative court. 

While there’s no suggestion of influence on Dame Sharp, it is the case that her twin brother is Richard Sharp, a former JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs banker (two banks with major investments in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems) and a multimillionaire Tory donor who is “considered by those who know him broadly pro-Israel”, according to a 2021 BBC report. 

Richard Sharp also has deep links to the political establishment. He was an adviser to Boris Johnson during his tenure as London mayor. In 2021, Sharp was appointed chair of the BBC on then-prime minister Boris Johnson’s recommendation, just weeks after helping Johnson secure a loan of up £800k. Sharp resigned in June 2023 after an inquiry found that he had broken conflict of interest rules by failing to fully disclose knowledge of the ex-PM’s personal finances.

The judicial review on Palestine Action’s proscription is now set to begin on Wednesday 26 November, a day behind schedule.

A DOJ spokesperson said: “The judiciary is meant to be independent of political influence. Yet with no transparency around this decision, and with the removal of the same judge in another major legal case concerning Palestine, public confidence is being seriously undermined.” 

Campaign Against Arms Trade’s Emily Apple called the last minute removal of Chamberlain “deeply alarming” and said: “It is even more concerning that his replacement has family links to banks and other institutions targeted by Palestine Action because of their connections to the arms trade and their complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“This raises serious questions around the lack of impartiality and transparency in our judicial system, and whether this is now a pattern in significant legal cases concerning Palestine. The court must now explain what’s happened to ensure public trust in a judicial review that is a crucial test of our civil liberties, and our right to challenge the companies breaking international law to profit from Israel’s war crimes.”

The judicial review comes amid a wave of demonstrations across the country protesting the ban on Palestine Action under UK terror law, coordinated by Defend Our Juries. 

Ammori has already seen off the government’s attempt to stop the judicial review from going ahead. The government’s appeal was dismissed on 17 October, and three judges – led by the lady chief justice Sue Carr – upheld the decision to grant Ammori a judicial review of Palestine Action’s proscription, and granted two further grounds on which to challenge the legality of the ban, in addition to the two already granted by Chamberlain.

Ammori’s legal challenge is now being brought on four grounds: that the proscription of Palestine Action interferes disproportionately with the rights to free speech and assembly, that the home secretary failed to consult with Palestine Action before making her decision, that the Home Office failed to consider relevant factors – including the level of public support for Palestine Action – and that it failed to comply with its own policy when deciding to proscribe.

The government’s controversial decision to proscribe direct action group Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 has resulted in more than 2,200 arrests since proscription came into force on 5 July – more than during the entire ‘war on terror’. 

Currently, being a member of or supporting Palestine Action is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. 

Additional reporting by Steven Methven.