Legal experts accuse Palestine Action judge of bias, lawyers demand recusal
Legal experts are among thousands who have signed a formal complaint accusing the presiding judge in a Palestine Action case of bias and discriminatory conduct.
The complaint, which will be filed on Friday by the campaign group, Defend Our Juries (DOJ), with the Judicial Conduct Office, comes ahead of a hearing on Monday on the defendants’ application for the recusal of Justice Jeremy Johnson on the grounds of apparent bias and abuses of process.
Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Samuel Corner and Fatema Rajwani risk facing sentencing as terrorists on 12 June, despite being convicted by a jury of criminal charges.
The complaint, which has garnered over 3,000 signatures, including by lawyers, law professors, retired police officers and magistrates, alleges that throughout the two trials, Johnson “betrayed a loss of objectivity and a personal animosity towards the defendants and the Palestinian cause, incompatible with the role of a judge”.
It alleges that Johnson’s bias was evident from the outset of the trial, when he decided to treat the defendants’ conscientious motivations for breaking into the factory - to destroy weapons that would be used by Israel to kill Palestinians - as an aggravating factor in their sentencing.
In a preparatory ruling in March 2025, Johnson ruled that there appeared to be a “terrorist connection” in the case because the activists were attempting to influence the Israeli government by restricting their access to weapons.
DOJ emphasised that this would be the first time in British legal history that protestors face sentencing as terrorists, without being convicted of terror offences or found guilty of intentional violence.
The terrorism connection was kept secret from the jury and will be decided by Johnson at sentencing.
The complaint said that the move puts the defendants’ actions on a par with Ahmed Hassan, the "Parsons Green bomber", who is the only other person to be sentenced on the basis of a terrorism connection, without being charged with a terrorist offence.
Hassan was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 for a bomb which detonated on a tube train in London, injuring 51 people.
The statement said that by doing so, Johnson “reveals his loss of judgment and a discriminatory mindset towards the defendants”.
'Manipulating the law'
In May, jurors at Woolwich Crown Court found the four guilty of criminal damage in connection with a raid on an Elbit Systems plant near Bristol on 6 August 2024. Two other activists, Jordan Devlin and Zoe Rogers, were cleared of the charges.
Corner was additionally convicted of causing grievous bodily harm without intent for striking a police officer.
The six had previously faced a months-long initial trial during which they were held on remand for up to 18 months, exceeding standard UK pre-trial custody time limits. They were acquitted by jurors of charges of aggravated burglary.
Rajwani, Devlin and Rogers were also found not guilty of violent disorder charges, while the jury did not return a verdict on the same charge for the other three defendants.
Maud Dromgoole, a juror in the first trial, said that the application of the terrorism connection without the jury’s knowledge is not “in the spirit of letting the jury decide”. She added that the state was "manipulating the law" to make examples of the defendants.
The complaint further argues that Johnson’s decision to refer the chief defence counsel, Rajiv Menon KC, for contempt of court “had a prejudicial impact on the defendants” by distracting the lead barrister and creating an atmosphere in which the defendants felt compelled to drop their lawyers in the second trial and deliver their closing speeches themselves.
It also pointed to Johnson’s failure to address public statements prejudicial to the defence ahead of the trial, including by former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, as further evidence of his bias.
Finally, the complaint argued that Johnson’s decision to remand the convicted activists back to prison, once they had already spent up to 18 months in prison, was “cruel and vindictive".
The statement concluded that, taken together, these decisions “amount to a pattern of exceptional, biased and discriminatory conduct on the part of the judge”.
“It should not be possible for observers to discern the political opinions of a judge. No rational observer, however, is left in any doubt regarding the political opinions of Mr Justice Johnson.”
DOJ has announced a “mass act of civil disobedience” to coincide with the sentencing hearing at Woolwich Crown Court on 12 June.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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