ShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleDominic CascianiHome and legal correspondent, Court of Appeal, LondonPA MediaPalestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in 2025The government has defended its ban on Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation, two months after the High Court ruled it was unlawful.
A rare five-judge panel at the Court of Appeal is considering whether February's decision to reject Palestine Action's proscription should stand.
Opening a three-day defence of the home secretary's proscription of the group, barristers told the Court of Appeal on Tuesday that overturning it would limit ministers' counter-terrorism powers.
The government's lawyer also told the court Palestine Action was "not Hamas or the IRA, where there is an almost unique overlap between those who are engaged in the terrorist activity and those who support it".
He had been asked by the second most senior judge in England and Wales, Sir Geoffrey Vos, if he accepted that the ban was legally unusual because of its impact on the right to protest by otherwise legitimate demonstrators.
Sir James Eadie KC said: "The rights of those who would otherwise wish to support Palestine Action are affected... maybe they don't even support the more extreme activities and/or wing of Palestine Action.
"But the whole nature and structure of the proscription regime is designed to recognise that there is value in preventing precisely that sort of support."
He also told the court that Parliament had given ministers discretion over how to take such decisions once there had been an expert finding that an organisation was "concerned in terrorism".
"Parliament was alive to the fact that those powers conferred on the secretary of state were significant powers," Sir James told the judges.
"Palestine Action met the statutory definition of being concerned in terrorism.
"The secretary of state's expert advice was that Palestine Action's activities were on an escalating trajectory of seriousness."
In February, three High Court judges found Palestine Action "promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality" and could not be described as an "ordinary protest group".
But those facts did not justify the ban under terrorism legislation, they concluded.
They ruled that the home secretary's ban had breached her own policy which limits how and when she could use the exceptional power - although the group remains banned for now while the government appeals.
The ban came a month after members broke into RAF Brize Norton and vandalised jets as part of a protest against the war in Gaza.
The group's main objective since its founding in 2020 has been to target the UK subsidiary of Israel's largest defence firm, Elbit.
Throughout the legal battle, lawyers for the group's co-founder Huda Ammori have said it is a legitimate protest group involved in civil disobedience.
The Court of Appeal was told in written submissions that between August 2024 and the June 2025 ban, Palestine Action members were involved in 158 "direct action events" against 48 different business premises.
On 28 occasions, protesters had caused more than £50,000 of damage and 158 people had been arrested, according to the submissions.
Counter-terrorism chiefs believe Palestine Action is active in every area of the country. In March 2025, they made a recommendation to the home secretary that banning the group would contain it without compromising the right to protest by peaceful pro-Palestinian organisations.
The appeal continues for two more days with arguments from Palestine Action's co-founder to follow on Wednesday.
Dozens of pro-Palestine protesters gathered outside the court during the hearing.
Some of them held signs saying they opposed genocide and supported Palestine Action - although there was no mass display of similar placards which have led to more than 3,000 arrests since the July 2025 ban.
