Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. [2025] EWHC 1170 (Admin) AC-2024-LON-001310 HUSAIN v SRA “not to make any decision upon the Respondent’s right to freedom of expression per se but to make findings of fact as to whether the Respondent’s specific mode and manner of that expression had crossed from legitimate debate into antisemitism and/or the use of offensive, or inappropriate language, resulting in a breach of his professional duties and responsibilities, and if so found, whether the seriousness of such a breach required sanction”. In reaching that decision, the Tribunal said at [27.12] that it had borne in mind that: “Twitter is a dynamic, robust, and fast paced medium in which users may be more liberal and fractious with their language than in any face-to-face dialogue. However, the Tribunal noted that a member of a regulated profession, identifying themselves as such was in a qualitatively different position to an unregulated individual with no professional affiliations, duties, and obligations, particularly in circumstances where there is a risk that the exchanges may escalate and become vicious and offensive”. 35. Although Article 8 protected an individual’s private life, the Tribunal considered that Beckwith v SRA [2020] EWHC 3231 (Admin) showed that codes of professional practice may regulate what professionals do away from work if it realistically touched on the practice of their profession or upon the standing of the profession in the eyes of the public. Diggins v BSB [2020] EWHC 467 showed that there was no “bright line” between the professional and private realms. In this case, Mr Husain had volunteered that he was an employment solicitor. It was not unreasonable to assume that he had used his membership of the profession (“the solicitor brand”) to add a level of legitimacy and gravitas to his public profile. It was therefore permissible to analyse his tweets to determine whether they were individually or collectively antisemitic and/or offensive or inappropriate and, if so, whether there had been a breach of the SRA Principles and professional conduct: [27.13]-[27.22]. 36. There was, the Tribunal considered, no agreed legal definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition had no legal status, but did have persuasive force. In a previous case (SRA v Mahmood), the Tribunal had used a synthesis of three definitions: the IHRA definition, the Oxford English dictionary definition and one offered by an expert who had given evidence in the Mahmood case, Prof. Gus John. The Tribunal took the same course, testing the evidence against all three definitions, whilst retaining the discretion, where appropriate and necessary, to develop its own definition. Essentially, “there was a necessity for the Tweets in question to demonstrate a hatred or prejudice to Jews as an over-riding requirement”: [27.23]-[27.28]. 37. In considering how it would apply the definition to the facts, the Tribunal applied the guidance which had been applied by the Tribunal in PSA v GPhC & Ali [2021] EWHC 1692 (Admin), as set out at [11]: “The test applied by the FPC was whether a reasonable person with all the relevant information would consider the words to be antisemitic: The ‘reasonable person’ in the Committee’s mind therefore is someone who is in possession of all the facts and knows the context; someone with no particular characteristics... This reasonable person therefore would know