Disclosure which would damage national security interests not required, judge finds

An experienced solicitor who represented Hamas in its application for deproscription under the Terrorism Act 2000 is not entitled to be provided with a ‘sufficient gist of the case against him’, the High Court has found.

Fahad Ansari was stopped and questioned by North Wales Police under the Terrorism Act in August 2025. Officers seized, downloaded, retained and inspected the contents of his work mobile phone. Ansari challenged the decision. Ansari was previously director and principal solicitor at Riverway Law, which acted for Hamas pro bono in order not to breach sanctions.

Mr Justice Chamberlain had, in a previous judgment, made a declaration under s.6 of the Justice and Security Act 2013 that a closed material application may be made. A special advocate, instructed on behalf of Ansari, said some of the closed materials should be disclosed into open. The police opposed this.

In Fahad Ansari, R (on the application of) v Chief Constable of North Wales Police & Anor, the judge said: ‘One of the issues which continues to divide the parties is whether the disclosure standard in Secretary of State for the Home Department v AF (No. 3) [2009] UKHL 28…applies to this case. If it does, the claimant is entitled to be provided with a sufficient gist of the case against him to enable him to disprove that case, even if doing so would be damaging to national security. If not, information falls to be disclosed to the claimant only to the extent that its disclosure would not be damaging to the interests of national security.’

The case of AF (No 3) found that under Article 6 of the ECHR that a person subject to a ‘control order’ who challenges its validity must be given sufficient information to answer the allegations against them.

Finding the disclosure standard set out in AF (No 3) did not apply, the judge said: ‘The court should apply the plain words of the statutory provisions and rules which govern the closed material procedure in question—in this case, the Justice and Security Act 2013 and CPR Part 82, which require the court to ensure that information is not disclosed in a way which would be damaging to the interests of national security.’

‘The exercise of the power [used by police to seize Ansari’s phone] does not involve any allegation against the claimant,’ the judgment said. ‘The seizure and retention of the claimant’s personal information does not affect his substantive legal position (in the sense that it imposes no legal obligations on him); and if the results of the search were used in criminal proceedings, the full panoply of procedural protections would apply.’

The judge found ‘neither defendant is required to give any disclosure which would be damaging to the interests of national security’. 

With regard to material which Ansari said fell under legal professional privilege, the judge said there were ‘substantial protections in place to safeguard the integrity of privileged information’, as reflected in his previous judgment refusing interim relief.

Last year, solicitors, barristers and legal academics signed an open letter calling on the government and Law Society to publicly defend Ansari after ‘unacceptable attacks’ arising as a result of the solicitor being identified with his clients.