Clarification of Proscribe Organizations Appeal Commission in UK by Jayaraj Palihawadana

London  22.10.2020 – There are some misunderstanding in regards to the judgment given by the Proscribe Organizations Appeal Commission in UK .
Below is the summary of the outcome of the judgment as I understand.;

Today’s (actually yesterday ) judgment actually consists with 2 judgements.
1. Open Judgement
2. Closed Judgement 

In UK , Courts can be handed down Open and closed judgements .The closed judgment will not be seen by non-state parties, their lawyers or the public. (Closed material procedures (CMPs) have become an established option for the government when it wants to rely on security-sensitive evidence in civil litigations). So we only saw the open judgment but not the closed one so only the home office would know the contents of it.

According to the open judgment from Britain’s Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission found that the Home Office decision to keep the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) proscribed as a terrorist organisation was “flawed” and unlawful, and paves the way for the organisation to possibly being legalised in the United Kingdom.Actually the open judgment is open for further hearings to consider “relief”.

Most important part of the judgment is the paragraph under “relief” , which says it will now hold a second hearing to decide on relief to be issued to the applicants. So the Commission could instruct the UK Home Secretary to lay a statutory instrument before parliament that may ultimately remove the LTTE from the list of proscribed organisations in the UK. However, there is a good possiblity that the UK government will oppose this relief.Then the home office can request that the matter be remitted back to the Home Secretary to make a new decision on the ban appropriately taking into consideration all of the evidence.

In simple terms, the matter is now with the hands of the Home Office. Disregarding all of above, still the Home office can appeal against the decision within 28 days, or if they want (we believe they would not) start delisting proceedings.Apart from home office , any other interested party or the SL high commission cannot intervene at this stage as non of them are parties to the original case.

However , we (including the SL government and the High commission ) can make own representations and submissions to Home office to show our reasons to influence their decision.

Jayaraj Palihawadana