Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. [2025] EWHC 1170 (Admin) AC-2024-LON-001310 HUSAIN v SRA example of fascism and that “[t]he ordinary reasonable observer would not view the comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany as inherently antisemitic”. 11. Mr Solomon for the SRA, in his skeleton argument, noted that making comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany is an example of antisemitism given by the IHRA, yet Mr Magennis’s skeleton argument “seeks to defend this position”. Mr Solomon continued: “The approach adopted by Mr Husain in the Revised Skeleton crosses the line from engaging with the legal question of the correct comparator, to making assertions which are simply antisemitic. This should not be tolerated by the Court.” 12. Shortly before the hearing Mr Magennis filed a reply skeleton argument objecting to the allegation of antisemitism against him. This allegation, he said, “seems to be motivated by a desire to stifle, and in any event risks having the effect of stifling, the Appellant’s freedom to fully advance his appeal”. Mr Magennis invited Mr Solomon to withdraw the allegation that his revised skeleton argument “ma[de] assertions which are simply antisemitic”. 13. Mr Solomon did not withdraw the allegation. The hearing proceeded and submissions were made in robust terms on both sides. At the conclusion of the hearing, I indicated that I would reserve judgment and would have to consider carefully whether I accepted or rejected Mr Magennis’s submissions, but that I did not consider any of those submissions to have been professionally improper. 14. Given the nature of the allegations against Mr Husain, it was inevitable that both the Tribunal and (subject to what I have said about the parameters of the appeal) I would have to say something about the meaning of antisemitism and about the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate criticisms of Israel. These were controversial issues, even at the time when the tweets were posted. By the time the Tribunal gave its decision, they had become even more so, following Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023. 15. In this case, some of Mr Husain’s comments found by the Tribunal to be antisemitic were comments comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. His case before the Tribunal had been that these comments were not antisemitic. As a barrister representing Mr Husain in his appeal, Mr Magennis was obliged by the Code of Conduct (rC15.1) to “promote fearlessly and by all proper and lawful means [his] client’s best interests”. It was for him to judge what submissions to make, provided that those submissions were properly arguable. 16. Mr Solomon’s complaint about Mr Magennis’s submission was, I am sure, not motivated by any desire to stifle the appellant’s freedom to advance his case. If I had accepted it, however, it would certainly have constrained that freedom. As a matter of principle, I consider that a court should be slow to shut out a submission by counsel on the ground that it is antisemitic where it is made in support of an argument about what constitutes antisemitism in a case where that is a central issue. The submission that it was not inherently antisemitic to compare Israel with Nazi Germany was properly arguable and, in my judgment, Mr Magennis did not act improperly by making it. 17. That said, Mr Magennis’s oral submissions about Israel’s conduct, though not professionally improper, at times went further than required to make his point. They