Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. [2025] EWHC 1170 (Admin) AC-2024-LON-001310 HUSAIN v SRA The parameters of the appeal 5. My task is not to try the allegations against Mr Husain, nor, to the extent that they are proven, to say what the sanction should be. Those tasks were for the Tribunal. Appeals under s. 49 of the 1974 Act are governed by CPR 52.21(3), which gives me the power to allow the appeal only if the decision of the Tribunal was “(a) wrong; or (b) unjust because of a serious procedural irregularity in the proceedings in the lower court”. 6. The test to be applied was not contentious. It was helpfully set out by Morris J in Ali v SRA [2021] EWHC 2709 (Admin), at [93]-[94]. I can intervene only if the decision involves an error of law or fact or an error in the exercise of discretion. I must exercise caution and restraint before interfering with findings of fact or evaluative judgments of the Tribunal, which is a specialist tribunal, bearing in mind the advantage it had in hearing the witnesses. The question is not whether I would have reached a different conclusion, but whether the tribunal’s decision involved a finding of fact with no basis in the evidence, a demonstrable misunderstanding of relevant evidence, a failure to take into account relevant evidence or a conclusion that cannot be reasonably explained or justified. 7. So far as sanction is concerned, in Law Society v Salsbury [2008] EWCA Civ 1285, [2009] 1 WLR 1286, Jackson LJ said this at [30]: “…the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal comprises an expert and informed tribunal, which is particularly well placed in any case to assess what measures are required to deal with defaulting solicitors and to protect the public interest. Absent any error of law, the High Court must pay considerable respect to the sentencing decisions of the tribunal. Nevertheless if the High Court, despite paying such respect, is satisfied that the sentencing decision was clearly inappropriate, then the court will interfere.” 8. In SRA v James [2018] EWHC 3058 (Admin), [2018] 4 WLR 163, Flaux LJ (with whom Jeremy Baker J agreed) made clear at [53]-[55] that the court could interfere with a decision on sanction only if the tribunal committed an error of principle or its evaluation was wrong in the sense that it fell outside the bounds of what the Tribunal could properly and reasonably decide. The conduct of the appeal 9. Mr Husain is an opponent of Zionism and a critic of Israel. A central issue in the proceedings before the Tribunal, and in the appeal before me, is whether he overstepped the boundaries of legitimate political speech and, in particular, whether when criticising Israel he used language that was antisemitic. 10. In his revised skeleton argument for the appeal, Mr Magennis for the appellant submitted that it was legitimate to assert that Israel is a fascist state, that Zionism is a fascist ideology and that Israeli fascism can be compared to other historical examples of fascism. Mr Magennis observed that Nazi Germany is the most well-known and studied