ON FRIDAY the campaign group, Defend Our Juries (DOJ), filed a complaint with the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, ahead its hearing today on the defendants’ (Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Samuel Corner, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin) application for the recusal (removal) of Justice Jeremy Johnson on the grounds of apparent bias and abuses of process.
The complaint, which has over 3,000 signatures, including by lawyers, law professors, retired police officers and magistrates, alleges that throughout the two trials of the ‘Filton 6’, Johnson ‘betrayed a loss of objectivity and a personal animosity towards the defendants and the Palestinian cause, incompatible with the role of a judge’.
Summary
The case concerned the group’s break-in to a factory owned by Elbit Systems in Bristol in August 2024, to prevent drones being supplied to the Israeli government to kill Palestinian civilians.
The political context for the case made it imperative that the judge was seen to be acting fairly and impartially.
Through his actions, however, Mr Justice Johnson betrayed a loss of objectivity and a personal animosity towards the defendants and the Palestinian cause, incompatible with the role of a judge.
This complaint does not directly concern the many contentious decisions made by the judge, which are more properly the basis for grounds of appeal to the Court of Appeal.
These include his decision to remove from the jury’s consideration all available legal defences and the extreme restrictions he imposed on the defendants explaining their conscientious motivations to the jury.
Rather it concerns three decisions taken by the judge, which give rise to the perception of bias:
First, he treated the defendants’ conscientious motivation to prevent Israel killing Palestinian civilians as an aggravating feature rather than a mitigating feature.
Second, he acted unlawfully in referring the lead defence barrister, Rajiv Menon KC for contempt of court.
Third, he acted vindictively, and without support from the prosecution, in remanding Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani into custody, following their convictions for criminal damage.
Ground 1 – The judge has acted in a way which appears biased and discriminatory by treating the defendants’ motivation to stop Israel committing war crimes as a potentially aggravating factor.
Only once previously has anyone been sentenced on the basis of a ‘terrorist connection’ without being charged with a terrorist offence.
That was Ahmed Hassan, ‘the Parsons Green bomber’, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 for a bomb which injured 51 people on a tube train.
Damage to property has been a recurring feature of protest campaigns from the Suffragettes and the women of Greenham Common to Extinction Rebellion and the Trident Ploughshares movement.
Military equipment has often been the target. Indeed the subject matter of the case in R versus Jones, famous for Lord Hoffman’s dicta on civil disobedience, concerned extensive damage to military aircraft destined to support the invasion of Iraq.
Hitherto, it has always been recognised that conscientious motivation should be treated as a mitigating factor.
For this reason the defendants in Jones were sentenced with conditional discharges (see the remarks of Lord Hoffman:
“The police and prosecutors … behave with restraint and the magistrates impose sentences which take the conscientious motives of the protesters into account.
‘The conditional discharges ordered by the magistrates in the cases which came before them exemplifies their sensitivity to these conventions,’ remarked Lord Hoffman
Yet Mr Justice Johnson has indicated that these defendants’ motivation to prevent Israel committing war crimes and acts of genocide is an aggravating factor such as to bring it within the scope of the Terrorism Act, and consequently that they may be sentenced as terrorists:
‘On s1(1)(b) of the TA 2000, Rajiv Menon KC and others strongly argued that influencing government was not the purpose of the action – the purpose of the action was to damage weapons and save lives – I accept that this was one motivating factor – but that does not mean that another purpose was not to damage property to be made available to the Israeli government and thereby influence the Israeli government.’
According to Mr Justice Johnson, the defendants’ intention to prevent Israel using drones to kill Palestinian civilians, is what brings their actions within the scope of the Terrorism Act.
By the same logic, all peace campaigners who cause damage to military property to stop war crimes are terrorists.
That is not only absurd, it is contrary to the basic legal principle that a conscientious motivation is a mitigating factor, not a reason to sentence people more harshly.
By treating, uniquely, the actions of the Filton 6 as on a par with the Parsons Green bomber, the judge reveals his loss of judgment and a discriminatory mindset towards the defendants.
Ground 2 – the judge has given rise to the appearance of bias by unlawfully referring the lead defence barrister, Rajiv Menon KC, for contempt of court between trials.
The judge unlawfully referred the lead defence barrister in this case for contempt of court for his closing speech, attempting to bypass the Office of the Attorney General.
Unusually, the judge’s conduct in this matter resulted in public criticism from across the legal profession, including a public statement from the Bar Council, in which the Chair of the Bar Council, Kirsty Brimelow KC, refers to the matter as a ‘troubling episode’:
‘I have followed with concern this exceptional attempt to refer Rajiv Menon KC for contempt of court,’ said Kirsty Brimelow.
‘A barrister has a duty to represent their clients fearlessly and Judge instigated contempt proceedings risk a chilling effect on the profession.
‘The Court of Appeal judgment is welcomed, and it is hoped that this now is an end of this troubling episode.’
Garden Court North Chambers expressed their opposition to the judge’s approach even more forcefully: ‘This prosecution should be unequivocally condemned as a grave attack on the longstanding principle that barristers must be able to represent their clients fearlessly, independently, and without intimidation.’
The consequence of the judge’s unlawful action had an prejudicial impact on the defendants, including by:
(i) distracting Rajiv Menon KC with contempt proceedings in between the trial and the retrial;
(ii) contributing to an atmosphere which resulted in five of the six defendants parting with their defence barristers prior to closing speeches in the second trial, and delivering the speeches themselves.
The discriminatory nature of Mr Justice Johnson’s action is made all the clearer by his failure to address the many public statements prejudicial to the defendants made in advance of the trial by Yvette Cooper MP and others, see: ‘Yvette Cooper wrote Palestine Action article despite CPS warning it could affect trial’, Guardian.
Ground 3 – the judge acted vindictively in remanding to custody Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani following their convictions for criminal damage.
Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, three young women who refuse to be bystanders to genocide, had been remanded in custody for 18 months before the jury on the first trial declined to convict them of any charge, far in excess of the custody time limits.
At the end of that trial, Mr Justice Johnson granted them bail.
They had less than 10 weeks out of prison before the start of their second trial.
The prosecution did not object to their bail continuing prior to sentencing, yet Mr Justice Johnson of his own motion remanded them in custody nonetheless.
Denying three young women the opportunity to prepare themselves and their families for a further period in prison was cruel and vindictive and not backed by the prosecution.
Conclusion
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.
His rulings are consistent only with a personal conviction that the Israeli government should be free to break international law and to slaughter Palestinians.
Taken together, these three incidents amount to a pattern of exceptional, biased and discriminatory conduct on the part of the judge, for which he should be held to account through the JCIO.
