Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. [2025] EWHC 1170 (Admin) AC-2024-LON-001310 HUSAIN v SRA 69. The Tribunal here applied precisely the test contended for by Mr Husain (see at [68][69]). The Holbrook case was very different. There, the barrister concerned accepted that “the right to political speech is not entirely unfettered” and that speech would lose its protected status if it included “derogatory, racist… language” (see [42]). In this case, there was such language. That being so, the interference with Mr Husain’s Article 9 and 10 rights was proportionate and justified. 70. In his post-hearing note, Mr Solomon submitted that the Court of Appeal in Adil had recognised the legitimacy of proportionate regulation of speech in the regulatory context. Discussion The law 71. Article 9(1) guarantees “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”, which includes the freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief in “worship, teaching, practice and observance”. Article 10(1) guarantees “the right to freedom of expression”, which includes the right to “impart information and ideas without interference by public authority”. 72. Articles 9(2) and 10(2) provide that the freedoms may be subject to “such limitations” (in the case of Article 9(2)) and to “such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties” as are “prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society” in the interests of “public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others” (in the case of Article 9(2) and “national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary” (in the case of Article 10(2)). 73. Although Mr Magennis’s skeleton argument made reference to a “protected belief” engaging the provisions of Article 9, his submissions focussed on Article 10. In my judgment, it is under that provision that the case falls to be analysed. 74. Many of the tweets in this case were on a subject of political importance: the IsraelPalestine conflict. For a recent restatement of the heightened protection accorded to “political speech” under Article 10, see e.g. Higgs v Farmor’s School [2025] EWCA Civ 109, [63] (Underhill LJ). 75. Speech does not lose its protection merely because it is abrasive in tone or liable to offend some of those who hear it. As Sedley J said in DPP v Redmond-Bate (12999) 163 JP 789, [2000] HRLR 249, at [20]: “Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having”.