We still don’t have a decision on whether the Scottish judicial review of Palestine Action can proceed. Lord Young is thinking about it. Last Thursday’s hearing went about as well as it could go. The UK government produced no written argument and barely seemed to be trying. They moved in court for the Scottish judicial review to be suspended until after the decision of the Supreme Court in the English case. They said it was on the same grounds as they won the suspension before – the use of judicial resources and that a Scottish judicial review would be too expensive.

I have to say this made me furious. It is not to expensive to deploy the police to arrest and charge hundreds of people, to drag them all before the courts for hundreds of hearings, and potentially to keep thousands of these “terrorists” in jail in the UK. Unlimited resources are available for all of that. But a three day court hearing in Edinburgh to determine whether any of that is legal, would be too expensive.

The UK government also argued there is not enough time, the Court of Session is too busy, and there are not enough clerks with the necessary security clearance to service closed sessions to hear secret evidence from the security service.

A number of the objections the UK government had put forward at the last hearing were not advanced again. They dropped res judicata – the claim that the English decision is binding on Scotland. They dropped the claim that the court was not competent to refer the case to the Inner House of the Court of Session for speedy decision. They also did not object that our amendments to the petition amounted to substantive change that would need new permission to proceed.

In short, the UK’s government’s objections were so half hearted and flimsy we were rather bemused by it. I am afraid that my own interpretation is that they are so confident that the judge is fixed that they don’t need to try.

The problem is that the government had no convincing arguments the last two times they won and maintained a “sist” or suspension. There was no argument in court about the fact that suspension had now ended – the UK government was asking for a new one. I still have not the slightest inkling what was the rationale behind that suspension, which was terminated by the Supreme Court deciding to hear the Ammori appeal, but equally would have been terminated by the Supreme Court deciding not to hear the Ammori appeal.

Having been refused twice before, the sist had been granted when the Advocate General, a UK government minister, turned up in person to argue for it. The arguments had not changed, it was simply deference to the UK government by Lord Young. It appears they are confident that will still hold.

In England we have multiple court decisions over Palestine activism and for the most part they give enormous concern about the willingness of judges to bow to extreme executive authoritarianism. The most egregious example may be Judge Sarah Plaschkes and her egregious attempts to have Tony Greenstein jailed over alleged support for Hamas – which carries up to 14 years imprisonment.

Tony Greenstein’s acquittal is a wonderful victory, echoing that of Natalie Strecker in Jersey in establishing that support for the Palestinian legal right of armed resistance to occupation cannot be equated to support for Hamas, Hezbollah or any other proscribed organisation. That Tony’s acquittal was unanimous is very important.

It is also notable that the acquittal occurred in affluent Kingston – and juries are local – not in an area where you might expect we would get natural sympathy from UK minority communities.

Tony himself wrote on his blog:

Judge Sarah Plaschkes Spewed Bile & Venom as Her Determination to Have Me Convicted was Thwarted

Numerous other observers were shocked during the trial by her continued efforts to hamper the defence. All context was forbidden, both in terms of Tony’s large body of writings and in terms of any discussion of the Genocide in Gaza or the history of Israel/Palestine, or what really happened on October 7. Even Greenstein’s police interviews were redacted so that the jury could only see those parts of the transcripts which the prosecution wished them to see – which when you think about it is deeply shocking. Plaschkes demanded to see questions for cross-examining the police in advance.

As is common now, the judge explicitly barred the jury from being told that they have an absolute right to acquit according to their conscience, and being aware of the potential sentencing consequences.

As is becoming common, Greenstein dismissed his lawyer temporarily and did his own closing speech, so he could say things in opposition to the judge’s rulings, including outlining what the jury had not been allowed to see, which his lawyer could not do without risking professional disbarment.

Plaschkes could not control her hate and fury at the end, once the jury returned with their verdict. She described Greenstein’s closing speech as “the ramblings of an old man”. His speech was cogent and evidently compelling, and Tony Greenstein is a substantially greater intellectual than the zionist functionary Plaschkes.

Plaschkes stated that she had considered finding Greenstein in contempt of court and encouraged the prosecutor to report him for contempt of court. The prosecuting barrister, embarrassed by Plaschkes’ open venom, refused to do so.

What is plain is that juries are the only area of hope in the “justice” system. There was a very significant development in the second Filton case, where eight people were tried as alleged “organisers” of the attack on the Israeli mass murder factory. In the first Filton case, MI6 client judge Johnson had given extremely harsh sentences through his post verdict avocation of a “terrorist connection”.

This is an extraordinary new legal strategy by which the sentencing for ordinary criminal charges may be radically increased if the judge, and the judge alone, decides there is a terrorist link post verdict. The jury has no say on whether there is a terrorist connection or not, and the judges hide from the jury the possibility of this happening at all.

But the public are not stupid and do not live under a rock. The jury sent a note in the second Filton case to the judge Patrick Field asking him whether there would be sentencing under “terrorist connection”. Field replied to the jury that this was “not your concern”.

We do not know what drives individual juries, but it is very probable that the jury’s refusal to convict seven of the jury of anything, and bringing in just one single count of criminal damage, was influenced by knowledge of the lengthy and disproportionate prison sentences the judge could impose under terrorism connection.

This is just one particular example of juries being repelled by the draconian persecution of activists by the state, in order to maintain complicity in a Genocide. The refusal of juries to convict is the only real defence the people have left at the moment. It is notable that the charges levied against placard holders supporting Palestine Action have been restricted to those carrying a jail sentence of up to two years – and therefore not allowing a jury trial.

Here is something astonishing which judge Field did allow. The first case charged six people who entered the factory at Filton with violent disorder. None was convicted. The second case charged eight people who were not present at all with violent disorder, as a matter of “joint enterprise”. But how could they have participated as “joint enterprise” in something another jury had already decided did not happen? What “joint enterprise”?

I can give you one solitary example of a decent judge. In Preston, Judge Robert Altham said he would not be adding a terrorist connection to charges of criminal damage of paint sprayed and windows broken on a Barclays Bank, who provide Elbit with financial services. He ruled that the extent of damage was not sufficient. That is however the limit of the good news I can bring you from Preston as seven people were arrested outside the Court and charged with supporting Palestine Action.

Do read Tony Greenstein’s blog about the extraordinary series of judicial rulings before he got to the courtroom and in front of a jury. It is an incredible tale of judicial and ministerial bias and corruption that deserves a book in itself. The dice are hugely loaded against us, but the fight continues.

I am afraid we do desperately need more funds to get through this. All the delay and procedural trickery set out above is designed to bleed us dry and, to be honest, it is working.

Please do not contribute if it causes you difficulty. If you know people who are able to afford to help and likely to be sympathetic, please do contact them and ask their assistance. We are trying to keep a lot of very good people out of prison.

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