Palestine Action Supreme Court appeal: permission granted on one ground

The Palestine Action Supreme Court appeal will go ahead on one ground. On 30 July 2026 the Court gave Huda Ammori permission to challenge the Court of Appeal ruling on the group’s proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000. It refused permission on her second ground. The Court has also fast-tracked the case for the autumn.

What has the Supreme Court agreed to hear?

Lord Sales, Lord Leggatt and Lady Simler dealt with the application on the papers. They granted permission on one of her two grounds and refused the other.

Reports of the decision point to the policy ground as the survivor. That is the argument that the then Home Secretary did not apply the published proscription policy correctly.

Treat that with care. The Court’s notice did not say which argument matched which ground. Two went in and one came out, but the Court has not confirmed the mapping. The scope will be clear when the parties file.

How the case reached this point

Ministers announced the proscription decision to Parliament on 23 June 2025. The order took effect on 5 July 2025, once both Houses had approved it.

Ms Ammori challenged the decision by judicial review on several grounds. The Divisional Court found for her on two of them in R (Ammori) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWHC 292 (Admin).

It held that the decision did not fit the Home Secretary’s own proscription policy. It also held that the decision cut into Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention out of all proportion. That breached section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

The Home Secretary appealed. Five judges heard it: the Lady Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls, Edis LJ, Lewis LJ and Whipple LJ. They allowed the appeal on both grounds in Secretary of State for the Home Department v R (Ammori) [2026] EWCA Civ 721. The Court gave judgment on 15 June 2026. The UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Amnesty International UK and Liberty all intervened.

Why does the policy ground matter?

Because it asks how tightly a published policy binds the minister who wrote it.

The Divisional Court read the policy as ruling out any weight for the working benefits of a ban. Those benefits, such as the extra powers a ban hands police, would apply to any group under review.

The Court of Appeal disagreed at each step. The list of factors in the policy was expressly non-exhaustive. Its purpose was not to fetter the Home Secretary’s discretion. And the Divisional Court had read the wording far too closely.

That question reaches well past this case. Ministers publish policies on immigration, sanctions, licensing and national security. In every one of them, lawyers fight over the line between a policy that guides a discretion and one that limits it.

When will the appeal be heard?

Expect a hearing in the Michaelmas term, which runs from October until shortly before Christmas. The Court had listed no date when this piece went out.

Judgment would normally follow some months after argument. The ban stays in force throughout.

What practitioners should watch

Start with the margin the Court of Appeal gave the executive. It held that the Home Secretary has special standing in matters of national security. Judging risk in that field, it said, is above all a task for ministers rather than judges. Move that dial and every national security challenge that follows will feel it.

Next, the four-stage test from Bank Mellat, and above all its fair balance stage. Two courts looked at the same material and took opposite views.

Then timing. Criminal cases tied to the ban are running in parallel. A fast-tracked civil appeal alongside live criminal cases is an unusual shape, and reporting rules in each of those cases apply whatever the Supreme Court does.

The judgments sit on Find Case Law. Our earlier pieces on the National Security Bill and on proposed ECHR reform set out the backdrop.