The Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action – funded so far by readers of this blog – has been simply shelved by delay tactics that plainly break the Scottish legal system’s own rules.
Our case was ruled competent for us to serve the petition on the UK government. They replied in the last hour of their two week deadline. The court itself then had a two week deadline to grant a judicial review, or to call a hearing on whether to grant it.
Instead the judge has simply sat on it, preventing a judicial review by administrative delay.
This is the absolutely plain rule the court is breaking:
The permission stage
58.7.—(1) Within 14 days from the end of the period for lodging answers the Lord Ordinary must—
(a) decide whether to—
(i) grant permission (including permission subject to conditions or only on particular grounds);
(ii) grant an extension to the time limit under section 27A of the 1988 Act; or
(b) order an oral hearing (for the purpose of making those decisions) to take place within 14 days.
The emphasis is mine but the word must is obviously very important here!
The extraordinary thing is that our legal team are struggling to come up with actions we can take to force the court to act. The judges can freeze this out for a very long time.
The absurd proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, and the appalling legal consequences on freedom of expression and in criminalising thousands of highly respectable citizens as terrorists, has faced the state with a dilemma which, at least in Scotland, it prefers not to resolve head on.
In Scotland, the prosecuting authorities have therefore written to over 20 activists charged for wearing T shirts with the slogan
“Genocide in Palestine, Time to take Action”
offering to drop charges if they accept a prosecutorial warning.
In Scotland, this warning does not involve an acknowledgement of guilt (unlike a police caution), but sits on your record for two years and can be used against you in future court cases. All twenty plus individuals we know of who have been offered the warning have responded by saying they will not accept the warning. The state’s attempt to dodge the court cases is therefore not working.
I am also hearing of activists charged for holding the Defend Our Juries signs saying:
“I oppose Genocide, I support Palestine Action”
being offered deals on non-custodial outcomes in Scotland if they accept guilt, but as such prosecution deals are dubiously legal from I have not yet fully managed to stand this story up.
But what is plain to me is that the authorities in Scotland are determined to keep both the judicial review of the proscription, and individual terrorist cases from the proscription, out of court.
The reason for this is that there is no confidence the Scottish judiciary, let alone Scottish juries, will uphold the proscription. The whole farce is falling apart on the basis of societal resistance to this draconian governmental overreach. This resistance runs vertically through the classes in Scotland.
I am currently in England for the judicial review of the proscription in the High Court of England and Wales. Here a different approach is being taken. They have simply switched the judges at the last minute to load the dice for Israel.
Judge Chamberlain granted the judicial review, a decision which was upheld by the Court of Appeal. As I have previously reported, he has a reputation for independence of the state, having even called MI5 out for producing dishonest evidence. I found his manner in court rather overbearing, but that self confidence is perhaps needed to take anti-Establishment positions as a High Court judge.
Chamberlain plainly was expecting to hear the case. He has handled it all the way through, it was scheduled according to his diary and just eight days ago he was still corresponing with counsel as the judge in the case. He has been replaced by a horror show of top zionists. Judge Swift is the poster boy of security service controlled judges, with a history of pro-government decisions in the Assange and Rwanda cases. He was a lawyer for the security services for many years and stated in interview that they were his favourite clients.
Swift was forced to recuse himself in the Graham Phillips case, when it was discovered he had been secretly meeting to discuss the case with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, one of the parties, without informing the defence. That is judicial behaviour so bad I cannot begin to describe the magnitude of it.
Here is what I wrote about Swift on 21 February 2024:
The blocking of Assange’s appeal was done by Judge Swift, a judge who used to represent the security services, and said they were his favourite clients. In the subsequent Graham Phillips case, where Mr Phillips was suing the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for sanctions being imposed upon him without any legal case made against him, Swift actually met FCDO officials – one of the parties to the case – and discussed matters relating to it privately with them before giving judgment. He did not tell the defence he had done this. They found out, and Swift was forced to recuse himself.
Personally I am surprised Swift is not in jail, let alone still a High Court judge. But then what do I know of justice?
Another of the new panel for the Palestine Action case, Judge Karen Steyn, who ruled that UK export of F35 parts was legal even though they may end up being used in Israeli attacks on Gaza. Steyn ruled that such decisions were political and a matter for ministers and not for the courts – an attitude which the government are evidently confident she will continue in the Palestine Action case.
Dame Victoria Sharp, who will chair the judicial review, is a puzzle. Completely integrated in the top Tory Establishment, her twin brother Richard gave a large personal loan to Boris Johnson and shortly thereafter, and doubtless by total coincidence, was appointed by Johnson as chairman of the BBC.
Richard Sharp has long been associated with zionist super donor Trevor Chinn. They served togather as advisors to Boris Johnson while he was Mayor of London. Victoria SHarp moves in an entirely zionist and high Tory milieu, but I must say that I was struck by her honesty and good sense in the Assange hearings. Perhaps from the Establishment point of view Israel is a subject on which she will be “safer”.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the last minute change of judging panel is a panicked effort by the government and its deep state controllers, to seize control of the narrative, following the carefully timed and illegal public release of highly edited and confused police footage of the Filton action.
It may prevail with this immediate panel but will not prevail in London longer term. Meanwhile we have in Scotland to continue to press the courts to stop hiding and to face the burning questions highlighted by this crazed authoritarianism in the name of Israel.
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