10th July 2020
Cathryn McGahey QC and Nicholas Chapman, instructed by the Treasury Solicitor, successfully represented the Home Secretary in a challenge to her decision to impose a TPIM on “QT”, a member of the proscribed Islamist terrorist organisation Al-Muhajiroun.
Following a four-day hearing, the High Court has now published its public judgment upholding the Home Secretary’s decision to impose specified anti-terrorism measures on QT.
In doing so, the court (Supperstone J) rejected QT’s claim that he was not a member of Al-Muhajiroun (also known as ALM), and held that there was a risk that QT would travel overseas to join IS if free to do so. It also rejected QT’s case that his extremist rhetoric, which the court accepted was likely to radicalise vulnerable young people, was a manifestation of his freedom of religion and of expression and that the TPIM therefore breached his human rights.
The case was unusual in that the Home Secretary relied on evidence upon which QT had been tried and acquitted in the criminal courts. The court rejected QT’s argument that this presented a legal barrier to the imposition of a TPIM.
The judgment can be found here.