Judgment Approved by the court for handing down.
[2025] EWHC 1170 (Admin)
AC-2024-LON-001310
HUSAIN v SRA
tweets “to determine whether they were, individually and/or collectively antisemitic
and/or offensive or inappropriate, as set out in Allegations 1 and 2, and if it decided
they were, then whether there had been breaches of the SRA Principles and
professional conduct”.
84.
These passages make clear that the Tribunal understood there to be two relevant
questions in its analysis. The first was whether the tweets antisemitic and/or offensive
or inappropriate. The second, which arose only if the answer at the first stage was
“Yes”, was whether that amounted to a breach of the SRA principles and professional
conduct.
85.
The passages criticised by Mr Magennis at [27.31] and [27.34], [27.36.1], [27.37.7],
[27.38.2], [27.38.11], [27.38.12] and [27.38.13] were all part of the first stage of the
analysis. In these passages, the Tribunal used the terms “offensive or inappropriate”
without using the qualifier “seriously”. However, it would be wrong to say that the
Tribunal failed generally to consider how offensive the tweets were. At [27.38.11], it
found that, in some of the tweets, “there was no nuance or subtlety and no attempt to
obscure their meaning with such Tweets being plainly and deliberately crude and
offensive”. At [27.38.12], it said that findings of antisemitism made the tweets
“inherently offensive and/or inappropriate”, at [27.38.13] that some tweets directed at
Mr Rifkind were “starkly offensive, absent any taint of antisemitism” and at [28.38.15]
that the tweets set out in the table above had been “puerile, hurtful and gratuitously
offensive” (emphases added). In my judgment, there is very little material difference
between the language used here and an express finding that some of the tweets were
“seriously offensive”. To all intents and purposes, it amounts to the same thing.
86.
The findings at [27.38.17] and [27.38.25] in relation to breach of principles 5, 2 and 6
under allegations 1.1 and 1.2 (the second stage of the analysis) was therefore premised
on findings which amount, in substance, to a conclusion that some of the tweets were
seriously (rather than just barely) offensive.
87.
The findings at [27.39.3] and [27.39.4] in relation to allegation 1.3 were that the tweets
had “racist/discriminatory content” and were “intrinsically and overtly offensive”.
Later, at [57], the Tribunal explained that the “distressing language regarding her
ethnicity” used in communications to the SRA’s investigating officer amounted to
“bullying and offensive abuse”. This too was, in substance, a finding that the
communications in question were “seriously offensive”.
88.
If there were any doubt about this, however, the Tribunal resolved it at [68]-[69], by
saying in terms that Mr Husain’s conduct had been “both seriously offensive and
seriously discreditable” in that there had been “many examples of antisemitic rhetoric,
vulgar and offensive language, and racism”.
89.
In my judgment, these passages show that the Tribunal did not misdirect itself as to the
high bar required before concluding that Mr Husain had breached principles 2, 5 and 6
of the SRA Principles. Whether it gave proper effect in its decision to the principles
underlying Article 10 is better considered under ground 3, to which I now turn.