Category: Courts and Politics

What the Palestine Action judgment means – and what it does not mean

13th February 2026

The High Court rules against the government, but not with enthusiasm

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This morning the High Court handed down its judgment in the Palestine Action proscription challenge.

I wrote a quick commissioned piece at Prospect within a couple of hours of the judgment being handed down – and I just want to add and develop a few thoughts.

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First, the judgment shows the independence of the High Court in two ways.

A ruling against the government by definition indicates the independence of the judiciary from the executive.

(For what it is worth, I thought a decision against the government was possible when it switched from being a single judge to a three judge panel headed by the President of the King’s Bench Division – a “strong bench” – for a strong bench would be more likely to rule against the government on a matter of national security than a single judge. That said one can never “read” any High Court judge(s).)

But the judgment shows the independence of the court in another refreshing way.

For if you look at the judgment it is plain that the court is not impressed by Palestine Action.

It is always heartening to see a court side with a party with which it has little or no sympathy. It means the court has not got carried away with motivated reasoning in favour of the party it wants to win.

The court said bluntly:

“[Palestine Action’s] campaign is intended to close down the operations of a company pursuing a lawful business. The campaign has not been pursued with restraint. The wide range of targets is significant. It lays bare that Palestine Action’s campaign and pursuit of criminal damage is designed to intimidate the persons and businesses targeted so they end their commercial relationships with Elbit. Palestine Action is not engaged in any exercise of persuasion, or at least not the type of persuasion that is consistent with democratic values and the rule of law.”

Anyone coming across that passage early on in a judgment might have expected Palestine Action to have lost the case.

But no.

The court found in favour of Palestine Action anyway.

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Second, it was an impressive legal win – even if the court was not impressed by Palestine Action.

To win any judicial review against the government on a terrorism-related matter is difficult.

And to win any challenge to any statutory instrument (such as the one which proscribed Palestine Action) is difficult, as opposed to challenging a mere exercise of discretion by an official or a minister.

To do both is remarkable.

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Third, the government really only has itself to blame.

Here I mean both the government in general as well as the current administration.

In 2019 the government widened the scope of the relevant Terrorism law to include expressions of support for a proscribed organisation. (Technically this was done by parliament, but at the government’s behest.)

It must have seemed a good, illiberal idea at the time.

But it meant if an organisation was proscribed for one purpose – to target its organisation, membership and fund-raisers – it also criminalised expression of support too.

It became a one-size fits all provision which meant any proscription automatically infringed the right to free expression of those who were not organisers, members or fund-raisers.

This in turn meant that a court – like today – would look at any proscription with anxious scrutiny.

By wanting to prohibit more and more, the government made any proscription more exposed to legal challenge.

It was a very daft move by the then government.

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The government has also only got itself to blame in another way – and here it is the current administration.

It is hard to read the judgment and see the then Home Secretary and her officials as anything other than hapless.

For although legally the High Court decided against the Home Office on two pleaded grounds – in reality the reason the Home Office lost the case was because the proscription was botched.

One gets the sense from the judgment (and from the surrounding news of the time) that those at the Home Office wanted to push terrorism law to its limit – against a group which, even if not peaceful protesters, did not really fit the definition of terrorism – knowing that this would, at a stroke, criminalise not only those involved but anyone who expressed support for the group.

Those at the Home Office knew this was a stretch.

It must have been obvious that the information before them did not substantiate the proscription.

And the court today ruled it was a stretch too far.

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Fourth, the judgment today – in and of itself – does not change anything.

The law is the same today as it was yesterday – and at the time of the various mass arrests for those expressing support of Palestine Action.

The reason for this is that the court has not yet made an Order giving effect to its judgment.

And until and and unless an Order is made the legal positions of all involved stay the same.

This is because judgments – per se – do not normally have any legal effect until they are encapsulated by an Order.

(Orders are the sausages which come out of the judicial sausage factory, in the same way statutes are the sausages which come out of the parliamentary sausage factory.)

The court deliberately has delayed making an Order, and it would seem that the law may stand until and unless the government seeks an appeal.

And so Palestine Action remains a proscribed criminal organisation and expressing support for it remains a criminal offence.

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Finally, the government will no doubt throw everything at the appeal.

But the government threw everything at this hearing – and it still lost.

Perhaps the government will win on appeal.

The judgment today was balanced on both grounds on which the Home Office lost – it may not take much to shift those balances.

But a more sensible government would not appeal.

As I set out back in September 2025, the government is over-reaching with using terrorism law in this case.

But if the government really wants to proscribe Palestine Action it should put a two-clause bill through parliament making it that a proscription of an organisation, its members and fund-raisers does not automatically criminalise expressions of support for that organisation.

If the government keeps over-reaching, it may fall flat again.

And an adverse appeal judgment will be more damaging for the government than this judgment at first instance.

Nothing the Home Office will throw at the appeal will take away the fact that this was a botched proscription based on incomplete material.

The Home Office mucked up.

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1642’s Five Members vs 2026’s Six Members

12th February 2026

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Comparing Charles I and President Trump in their attempts to arrest and charge legislators

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This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

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Trump v the BBC cont’d: an odd and desperate letter from the US media regulator

22nd November 2025

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Why the BBC is right not to pay damages to Trump

14th November 2025

By apologising, the broadcaster has taken the sting out of Trump’s excessive attack

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I have done a piece at the New Statesman where I used to be legal correspondent, you can read it here.

You can comment below.

The letter the BBC could send to Trump in reply to his $1bn claim

12th November 2025

Yesterday this blog offered a close reading of the letter Trump’s lawyers had sent to the British Broadcasting Corporation. As a follow-up, this is a letter that the BBC could send in reply.

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Dear Sirs

We refer to your letter.

As a preliminary point, it is accepted that the edited video in the Panorama programme was an error which should not have been made by the production company or approved by us for broadcast. We apologise for that error both to our viewers generally and to your client in particular. It was a failure of commissioning, journalistic and editorial standards. The programme has been removed from our iPlayer online platform and it will not be broadcast again with the error.

But failures of commissioning, journalistic and editorial standards do not by themselves give rise to a legal claim. We have looked carefully at your client’s claim as set out in your letter, and for the reasons below that claim is denied.

Your letter provides no evidence that your client was aware of the programme when it was broadcast or for at least a year afterwards. If your client maintains this claim please disclose evidence for our pre-action inspection that your client was aware of the broadcast before the press coverage of the last two weeks. Please also inform us when you were first instructed in respect of this complaint. In your letter you are anxious that we retain relevant documents, and so we presume you also have relevant documents about your client’s awareness of the programme. If you do have such evidence, please confirm that is the case.

The programme was not broadcast in the United States generally or Florida in particular. Our programmes on iPlayer are not available in the United States. Please provide any evidence for our pre-action inspection that the programme was watched by any person in your jurisdiction. Again, given the document retention requirements you set out in your letter, you presumably have retained such documents. And again, if you do have such evidence, please confirm this is the case.

You state in your letter three times that your client has suffered “overwhelming financial and reputational harm”. This is presumably on the Beetlejuice principle that if you say something three times it somehow appears. But your letter contains no evidence of either financial or reputational harm, let alone both. And your letter certainly fails to provide evidence of any harm being “overwhelming”. Given that your client was actually re-elected to the presidency within days of this programme being shown (in the United Kingdom but not the United States) there is no obvious harm that was suffered by your client.

If you do have any evidence of the alleged harm, either “overwhelming” or at all , and if your client continues with this claim, please provide that for our pre-action inspection. Please also provide evidence that the programme was “widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums, which have reached tens of millions of people worldwide”.

Talking of “tens of millions” you provided no basis whatsoever for the figure of one billion dollars. Please confirm whether this is a billion in an English or an American sense. As the figure seems arbitrary, please provide your workings out of the quantum. As it stands, the figure has no more meaning than a demand for one trillion dollars, or for one dollar.

Both your client and the BBC believe in the value of freedom of expression. Your client benefits from the constitutional and other legal protections for free speech in the United States. The BBC also should have the benefit of the same protections. We made a mistake for which we have apologised and undertaken not to broadcast again. But this should not be a matter for the courts.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yours faithfully

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A close look at Trump’s $1 billion claim against the BBC

11th November 2025

The litigation letter is weak, but his underlying practical position is not weak

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The headlines are eye-catching.

Other, similar front pages are here.

What is going on?

And what can be usefully said from a United Kingdom perspective about this threat by the President of the United States of America to sue our state broadcaster, the British Broadcasting Corporation?

This post is divided into three parts: (1) what is being complained about, (2) what can be said about the threat from a legal perspective, and (3) how this threat fits into he context of how President Trump uses civil litigation and threats of civil litigation.

In essence: what are the facts, what is the legal analysis, and what is the practical position.

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Let us begin.

The complaint is in respect of a Panorama programme broadcast by the BBC on 28 October 2024, which is well over a year ago.

The BBC page for the programmes is here:

You will see on that page that “this episode is not currently available”.

You will also see that dates of the broadcast:

Note that the broadcast dates are before Trump’s successful election on 5 November 2024.

And if you look carefully at that page you will also see that the programme was not made by the BBC, but by a third-party production company. This was thereby not made directly by the BBC news teams, though they would have presumably reviewed and approved the content before broadcast.

This distinction between production and broadcast is not unusual for such programmes.

There is also no evidence that the programme broadcasts were readily available in the United States:

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As regards the content complained of, the Guardian have provided this handy comparison, which you should now click on and watch:

It is a speech by President Trump on 6 January 2021.

In the Panorama edit two parts of the speech are put together so to give the impression that a single statement was made – effectively a succinct incitement to violence:

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”

In fact the first part – “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol…” – and the last part – “…and we fight. We fight like hell” – were at different parts of the same speech. Indeed, the two passages are about 54 minutes apart.

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From a journalistic and editorial perspective, the Panorama edit is misleading. It conveys the false impression that the two statements were said in one go. There is nothing in the Panorama edit to suggest any passage of time between the two utterances.

As such, from a journalistic and editorial perspective, the Panorama edit is indefensible and it should not have been broadcast.

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However, not all journalistic and editorial errors are breaches of the law.

For such an error to be unlawful as well as unfortunate something else is needed. A complainant needs to bring the error into the scope of the applicable law, which in England and Wales, for example, would the laws of libel and of malicious falsehood.

A journalistic or editorial error is not, in and of itself, actionable at law.

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So what is the legal complaint of President Trump and his legal representatives?

According to Sky the legal letter is as follows:

Re: Demand to Retract False And Defamatory Statements About The President of the United States of America

Dear All:

This law firm serves as litigation counsel for President Donald J Trump (hereinafter referred to as “President Trump”). Please direct all future correspondence relating to this matter to my attention. This correspondence serves as a demand under Florida Statute § 770.011 that you immediately retract the false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements made about President Trump, which were published in a Panorama documentary that was fabricated and aired by the BBC.

Failure to comply will leave President Trump with no choice but to pursue any and all legal rights and remedies available to recover damages for the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that the BBC has caused him to suffer, with all rights and remedies being expressly reserved by President Trump.

In the Panorama documentary, titled “Trump: A Second Chance”, which was first broadcast on October 28, 2024 – a week before the 2024 United States presidential election – the BBC intentionally sought to completely mislead its viewers by splicing together three separate parts of President Trump’s speech to supporters on January 6, 2021.

The documentary showed President Trump telling supporters: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

This fabricated depiction of President Trump was false and defamatory given that President Trump’s actual and full remarks were: “We’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down any one of you but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressman and women.”

Moreover, the BBC edited out President Trump saying, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Thus, as set forth in an internal whistleblower memorandum, the BBC’s segment maliciously made it appear that President Trump “[said] things [he] never actually said,” by editing together footage from the start of the speech with a separate quote early an hour later.

Due to their salacious nature, the fabricated statements that were aired by the BBC have been widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums, which have reached tens of millions of people worldwide. Consequently, the BBC has caused President Trump to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm.

 

A. Applicable law

Words are defamatory under Florida law when “they tend to subject one to hatred, distrust, ridicule, contempt or disgrace or tend to injure one in one’s business or profession.” Johnston v. Borders, 36 F.4th 1254, 1275 (11th Cir. 2022) (quoting Am. Airlines, Inc. v. Geddes, 960 So. 2d 830, 833 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007) (citation and quotation marks omitted)). Statements are defamatory if “the defendant juxtaposes a series of facts so as to imply a defamatory connection between them, or creates a defamatory implication by omitting facts.” Johnston v. Borders, 36 F.4th 1254, 1275 (11th Cir. 2022) (quoting Jews for Jesus, 997 So. 2d at 1108).

Further, “where the speaker or writer neglects to provide the audience with an adequate factual foundation prior to engaging in the offending discourse, liability may arise.” See Zambrano v. Devanesan, 484 So. 2d 603, 607 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986).

Even if the BBC attempts to whitewash its conduct as simply an expression of its opinions, Florida law makes clear that such a defense will not absolve its liability. See Dershowitz v. Cable News Network, Inc., 541 F. Supp. 3d 1354, 1362 (S.D. Fla. 2021); see also Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 18-19 (1990) (”Even if the speaker states the facts upon which he bases his opinion, if those facts are either incorrect or incomplete, or if his assessment of them is erroneous, the statement may still imply a false assertion of fact. Simply couching such statements in terms of opinion does not dispel these implications.”) (emphasis added); see also Eastern Air Lines, Inc. v. Gellert, 438 So. 2d 923, 927 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983) (“[A] statement that although ostensibly in the form of an opinion ‘implies the allegation of undisclosed defamatory facts as the basis for the opinion’ is actionable.”) (emphasis added).

Consequently, the BBC lacks any viable defense to the overwhelming reputational and financial harm it has caused President Trump to suffer.

 

B. Demand

The above-referenced false, defamatory, malicious, disparaging, and inflammatory statements were published to deliberately denigrate President Trump. The timing of the fabricated documentary is evident.

The BBC’s reckless disregard for the truth underscores the actual malice behind the decision to publish the wrongful content, given the plain falsity of the statements.

Accordingly, President Trump hereby demands that you:

1) immediately issue a full and fair retraction of the documentary and any and all other false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading, and inflammatory statements about President Trump in as conspicuous a manner as they were originally published;

2) immediately issue an apology for the false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading, and inflammatory statements about President Trump; and

3) appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.

Moreover, please allow this letter to serve as notice to you, to your affiliated entities, subsidiaries, to all of their employees, and any other person acting on behalf of or in concert with the BBC, to preserve any and all evidence related in any way to the above-mentioned malicious, false, and defamatory statements the BBC published, and any other statements that the BBC has published regarding President Trump.

By way of this letter, the BBC is hereby directed not to destroy, conceal, or alter any paper or electronic files, physical evidence, and/or other data relating in any way, no matter how remote, to your false claims regarding President Trump, and/or the circumstances leading to their dissemination, including, but not limited to:

1) all communications between you and any third party in any way related to your wrongful claims regarding President Trump;

2) all sources for your false claims regarding President Trump;

3) any and all documents and data referring to, reflecting, or relating to communications between you and any such third parties or sources regarding your false claims regarding President Trump; and

4) any and all documents in any way related to your false claims regarding President Trump. This includes any information alleged to be protected by Florida Statute § 90.5015. Monarch Air Group, LLC v. Journalism Dev. Network, Inc., No. 23-CV-61256, 2025 WL 445491, at *1 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 10, 2025) (interpreting Fla. Stat. § 90.5015 and explaining that the Eleventh Circuit “recognizes a qualified privilege for journalists, allowing them to resist compelled disclosure of their professional news gathering efforts. This privilege shields reporters in both criminal and civil proceedings.”) (quoting United States v. Capers, 708 F.3d 1286, 1303 (11th Cir. 2013)).

I understand that many records and files are maintained electronically. However, this letter specifically requests that all paper and hard copy originals be maintained and preserved in their original format.

By the same token, electronic documents and the storage media on which they reside may contain relevant, discoverable information beyond that which may be found in printed documents. Therefore, even where a paper copy exists and has been preserved, please preserve and maintain all electronically stored documents in their original native format, including all metadata.

This preservation demand specifically encompasses any and all electronic documents, including but not limited to, all word-processed files, emails, spreadsheets, all databases, log files, and any other electronically stored and/or generated documents or files.

If the BBC does not comply with the above by November 14, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. EST, President Trump will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages.

The BBC is on notice.

PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.

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(That last term in block capitals is a feature of US litigation letters.)

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There some rather odd things about this legal threat.

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First, the letter states in three places about the the reputational harm caused to Trump:

“…the BBC lacks any viable defense to the overwhelming reputational and financial harm it has caused President Trump to suffer”

“…the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that the BBC has caused him to suffer”

“…the BBC has caused President Trump to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm.”

The Panorama programme was broadcast in the United Kingdom days before Trump was re-elected in the United States.

It is impossible to see how Trump being re-elected is consistent with him suffering any harm by the broadcast, let alone “overwhelming financial and reputational harm”.

And if you look closely at the letter, no harm is even shown – let alone “overwhelming financial and reputational harm”.

Instead harm is merely asserted – rather than demonstrated.

As such this seems a weak litigation letter.

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The failure by this letter to show harm then feeds into the threat that Trump may sue for “no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages.”

Because no harm is shown, this figure is arbitrary.

The letter may have said one dollar or a trillion dollars and would have made as much rational sense.

It is a preposterous demand.

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The letter is also alert to the inconvenient truth that the programme was not actually broadcast in the United States. This is is why the following passage is included:

“…the fabricated statements that were aired by the BBC have been widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums, which have reached tens of millions of people worldwide.”

There is no evidence in the letter that anyone in the United States, let alone Florida, either saw the programme or even know of its existence.

Interestingly, in the demands for document retention, the letter fails to even ask the BBC for evidence of the extent of downloads and broadcasts of the programme. This is a strange omission, if this was a serious legal threat.

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I am not an American lawyer, and so I can offer no view on the merits of this legal threat under the laws of Florida. Even what can seem weak litigation letters may have traction in other jurisdictions.

But if this threat was made under the laws of England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own legal systems) one would say that this claim also had its weaknesses over here.

First, it is would be out of time: there is a one year limitation period.

Second: the claimant would have to show – and not merely assert – serious damage to their reputation. The letter does not do so.

And third: the ceiling for damages claims for libel in England and Wales is about £300,000 – and any award over £100,000 is rare.

This rules out one million pound claims, let alone one billion pound claims.

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Would the BBC have any defence in a hypothetical case brought in England, regardless of the above defences?

A straight defence of truth would not be available – Trump did not say what the Panorama edit had him saying, at least not in one go.

However, the truth defence also covers things which are “substantially” true. This is a riskier defence to mount, but if the BBC did mount it would be along the lines of Trump did effectively promote an insurrection, even if he did not say in one go what was said in the Panorama edit.

Here the BBC could point to findings of Congressional committees and the terms of the impeachment of Trump passed by the House of Representatives (even though he was not convicted by the Senate). The BBC could also say that the 54 minute gap between the statements did not necessarily mean that the latter statement – “fight like hell” – was not an incitement.

An English court would also have regard to the programme as a whole, and also to Trump’s speech as a whole.

Whether Trump was an insurrectionist would presumably not be something Trump would want to have decided by an English court on the basis of the civil standard of proof – the balance of probabilities.

On the other hand, it was a bad journalistic and editorial fail, and so the BBC would not relish this being decided by the London high court either.

On the face of it, if this was litigated at the high court in London (and assuming limitation was not a problem, and the claimant was able to show serious damage) one could see it going either way, though one would expect a successful claim to be worth only about £30,000.

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Stepping back, what we have here is an overstated claim on a somewhat artificial basis. Until recent news reports, one suspects neither Trump nor anyone else in the US even knew about the Panorama programme.

And given he was re-elected president (in the USA) days after broadcast (in the UK), any claim for damages would seem to fall flat.

But.

The facts of the Panorama edit are ugly for the BBC. It was a bad mistake, and so it would not be one where a confident defence could be mounted.

And this, in turn, means Trump has leverage.

Trump loves leverage.

For Trump, civil litigation is a form of deal-making – the promotion of his political and business interests by other means.

One should not approach his legal manoeuvres as if they are cases that will go all the way. They are skirmishes intended to force a deal, a compromise, a back-down by the other side.

A confident BBC would admit a mistake and move on without admitting legal liability.

But we do not have a confident BBC.

We have a media corporation lacking confidence.

Trump loves media corporations -and other institutions – that lack confidence.

And although one would hope the BBC would mount a complete defence to any claim being brought in a jurisdiction where a programme was not even broadcast and where no damage has been shown, one can also imagine the BBC seeking to make amends including by means of compensation (of licence fee payers money) so as to avoid litigation.

The litigation letter may be weak, but Trump’s underlying practical position is strong: the BBC made a mistake, and he knows how to take full advantage of it.

So putting aside the theatrics of a bombastic letter with its senseless $1 billion claim, there is a power play here which Trump has done many times before.

And the real mistake of the BBC (and the production company) was opening itself up to such a play of power.

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Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

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Trying to make sense of the nonsensical decision to drop the Chinese spying prosecutions

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Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

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What Banksy’s RCJ mural maybe gets wrong

9th September 2025

Judges are not to blame for the protest laws promoted by the executive and passed by parliament and implemented by the police and prosecuted by the Crown

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The Royal Courts of Justice on Strand is a superficially impressive building.

It projects the might and grandeur of the legal system.

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This elegance continues inside with a bracing great hall with law and justice-related art and statues, and in a gallery above glass cabinets exhibiting judicial costumes.

(Pics above from Wikipedia.)

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And adjacent to that great hall are several quaint period courtrooms – very pretty but also very uncomfortable and inefficient.

Like a great deal of the British constitution, the RCJ is a Victorian construct made to look and feel a lot older.

And it is quite dreadful building for its practical purpose.

Yet it is there – and perhaps more than the Old Bailey round the corner and certainly more than the Supreme Court on Parliament Square, it is a physical and aesthetic embodiment of our domestic law.

The RCJ is not only where justice is supposed to be done, but it also where justice is seen to be done.

The RCJ is primarily about optics, not functionality.

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Yesterday another work of art about justice was added to the RCJ, supplementing the various sculptures and paintings inside.

This was, of course, this mural by Banksy:

Aesthetically it is no worse than the depictions of judges and justice inside the RCJ.

But it was unauthorised and so, from a legal perspective, prima facie criminal damage.

And, as Joshua Rozenberg has spotted, the supposed barrister in the Banksy Instagram picture must be a model, given a mistake in their dress.

Furthermore, as 1001 respondents on social media pointed out in merry unison, the judge is using a gavel, and judges in our jurisdiction do not use gavels.

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Indeed, much of the response to the new art had little or nothing to do with what it depicted.

As such, it maybe failed in its presumed purpose – of getting people to discuss the law of protest and protesting.

And even the depiction was perhaps wrong: judges are not to blame for the laws promoted by the executive and passed by parliament and implemented by the police and prosecuted by the Crown.

Indeed it is often the courts that are the last protection for protesters.

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One amusing aspect of the incident is that the RCJ – to match its visual rhetoric – provides one of the most elaborate security theatres of any public building.

Security is not only done, but – oh dear gods – it is seen to be done.

And yet yards away from where the zealous performances of security take place, an artist was able to commit what the law would probably regard as criminal damage without interruption.

It was only when it came to public notice that anything was done about it.

The Guardian:

The BBC:

One news report stated that yesterday morning, “guards were trying to stop people from taking pictures. More staff then arrived with supplies to cover it up”.

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Another amusing aspect to this is that the RCJ itself is where an intellectual property judge once wrestled with questions about the law relating to Banksy murals:

One wonders where any civil dispute or criminal appeal about this week’s mural would be heard, given a possible conflict of interest.

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Criminal damage is wrong, and as this appears to be criminal damage then this makes this wrong.

Those embarrassed by the failure of the usual RCJ security theatre will no doubt press for an investigation and prosecution.

If there is a prosecution and a conviction then there will be no doubt that this was criminal damage.

But if there is a prosecution there may also be a defence, and an acquittal.

If so, the artist would be saved by the very court process they are depicting in the mural.

Which would be ironic, don’t you think.

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Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

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Afghan super-injunction now published

17th July 2025

Court order now in public domain following request from this blog

Yesterday this blog set out that the key super-injunction court Order had not actually been published among the raft of legal materials published a couple of days ago.

It was averred that this was an odd omission.

Following my request to the UK judiciary office, the court Order (with redactions) has now been published.

 

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Comments Policy

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Why have the terms of the now-discharged Afghan super-injunction not been published?

17th July 2025

There can be no good reason now for the substantial terms of the court order to be hidden (subject to redactions)

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*SEE UPDATE AT END*

Now, here is a puzzle.

A couple of days ago, a raft of materials was published by the United Kingdom judiciary office in respect of what we can now call the Afghan super-injunction.

(A super-injunction is when the court order forbids even any public disclosure that the injunction exists.)

These materials were published on the judiciary.uk website – and one can tell care and attention was put into their publication.

There is even a prepared, four-page press summary.

But there is something which is not there, which perhaps should be there.

What is missing is the actual super-injunction court order itself.

There is a court order – the one which finally discharged the super-injunction – but not the super-injunction itself.

In the circumstances, this is a striking omission.

Indeed, it is so striking an omission given the other materials published, that the decision not to publish its terms (subject to any necessary redactions) must have been a deliberate decision by somebody.

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There is a strong public interest in the actual terms of any super-injunction being published after it is discharged.

This is because the terms of such orders are so onerous – and the impact on other rights and freedoms so drastic – that once it is no longer in force then the public should be able to see the terms of such an order.

But in this case, there is an even stronger public interest.

It would appear that it was felt that the existence of this order meant parliamentarians could not even be told of the hidden data breach and subsequent policy-making and implementation.

It is also apparent that the original judge went further than even the government wanted in making this order a “super” injunction.

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The judiciary press office has now been asked for a copy of the original order.

This request is being considered – and the request has not been rejected outright.

Of course, there may be details which should be redacted – but this was also the case with the published documents. Such redactions caused no practical problem.

But there cannot be any good reason why the substantial terms cannot be published, subject to redactions.

If the courts grant such super-injunctions – especially when the government (or other applicant) does not even ask for the injunction to be made a super-injunction – then it must be beholden on the courts to publish the substance of such orders once they are no longer in force.

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UPDATE

The original ‘super-injunction’ court order has now been published by a media organisation, though it has not been published by the judiciary office. In these circumstances, I will await the judiciary office decision before linking to it.

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Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

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