PSC's Famous Court Victory
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is delighted to announce that we have won a great victory in the battle to defend the right to take action in the UK in support of Palestinian rights.
Since 2017 we have been fighting the UK Government in the courts, protecting the right to undertake Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns in the UK. We won in the High Court, then lost in the Court of Appeal, but today the final verdict from the Supreme Court is in – and we have won!
With support via submissions from the Quakers, Campaign Against Arms Trade and War on Want, and with a huge body of small donations from thousands of members and supports to fund the legal challenge, we have managed to defeat regulations that would have stopped Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) from divesting from companies complicit in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people, and additionally from divesting from the UK defence industry.
The Supreme Court has ruled in our favour and the regulations the Government introduced in 2016 are now finally and definitively declared illegal and thrown out.
For some years Israel and its allies have been engaged in a battle to delegitimise activism for Palestinian rights and, in particular, to attempt to criminalise action in support of the Palestinian call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
The UK Government’s attempts to introduce these regulations must be understood within that context. The Government announced in the Queen’s Speech its intention to bring in further anti-BDS legislation. Our victory in the Supreme Court today should act as a shot across their bows.
But we know we will need to do more, and PSC is building a campaign alongside a broad range of allies who are concerned about attempts to bring in laws that seek to prohibit public bodies from making their own decisions about not investing in companies that are complicit in violations of international law – whether in relation to Palestine or elsewhere.
In bringing the legal case, PSC had raised concerns about threats to freedom of expression, government overreach in local democracy, and the right of pension holders to have a say in the investment and divestment of funds.
Today is a great victory from which we will draw strength for the battles ahead.
Jamie Potter, Partner in the Public Law and Human Rights team at Bindmans LLP, and solicitor for PSC said: “We welcome the Supreme Court’s confirmation that the Government went too far in imposing its political opinions onto the management of the money of LGPS members. LGPS members now have the freedom to pursue their own principles in respect of the role of the arms trade and foreign countries in violations of human rights around the world, when determining how their pension monies are invested.”
