High Court upholds strike-off for solicitor who posted antisemitic tweets

In Farrukh Najeeb Husain v Solicitors Regulation Authority [2025] EWHC 1170 (Admin), the High Court warned that the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is not a “get out of jail free card” for regulated professionals who post or send offensive, inappropriate or derogatory content.

The disciplinary proceedings

Farrukh Husain was a solicitor who by 2021 was active on Twitter (now X).  His account identified him as a lawyer and, in several tweets,  as an employment solicitor.  In May 2021 he Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) received a complaint about his tweets and started an investigation.  It ultimately brought allegations against him in respect of tweets which it said were offensive and antisemitic and in respect of correspondence with the SRA which it said was offensive.

During the proceedings heard by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), Mr Husain accepted that he was the author of the tweets but said he should not be disciplined for posting them in a personal capacity.  He denied they were antisemitic, but apologised if they caused offence.  The SDT found the allegations proved and ordered that Mr Husain be struck off the Roll of Solicitors.

Mr Husain appealed against the ruling to the High Court.

The Appeal

Mr Husain advanced four grounds of appeal, namely:

1. The SDT wrongly disregarded medical evidence of his disability, which he claimed caused his conduct. The SDT also gave insufficient weight to it when considering sanction.
2. He contended that his tweets were political speech deserving the highest protection under Article 10.
3. He challenged the SDT’s reliance on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (“IHRA”) working definition of antisemitism which was “flawed” and “partisan”. It also wrongly relied heavily on the admission of expert evidence from a member of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is a “biased, widely discredited and openly Zionist organisation”. To the extent that it relied on other definitions of antisemitism, the SDT’s reasoning was inadequate and it consistently conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism without any proper evidential basis.
4. He argued that the sanction of striking off was manifestly excessive and disproportionate, and departed from guidance and sanctions in other cases.

Mr Justice Chamberlain set out from the very beginning of his judgment that the purpose of appeals under section 49 Solicitors Act 1974 was not to try the allegations against Mr Husain again. The power of the High Court in such appeals is only to allow the appeal if the decision of the SDT was either wrong in law or fact or unjust because of a serious procedural irregularity in the proceedings before the SDT. The High Court must exercise caution and restraint before interfering in findings of fact or evaluative judgments by the Tribunal.  The question the High Court must consider is whether the Tribunal’s decision involved either:

1. a finding of fact with no basis in the evidence;
2. a demonstrable misunderstanding of relevant evidence;
3. a failure to take into account relevant evidence; or
4. a conclusion that cannot be reasonably explained or justified.

Mr Justice Chamberlain then summarised the SRA guidance about social media and offensive comments. Within that, the SRA makes clear that a solicitor must be careful about what they post on social media, whether in a professional or personal capacity. If a solicitor is posting something in a personal capacity, they are still expected to act in a way which upholds public confidence in the profession.  In other words, they should refrain from posting anything offensive, derogatory or inappropriate at all times.

Ground 1: Medical Evidence

During the disciplinary proceedings, Mr Husain adduced medical evidence of his disability some three months after the hearing had initially started. After considering it, the Tribunal admitted the medical evidence for the purpose of informing the adjustments necessary to enable Mr Husain to effectively participate in the proceedings. The SDT however refused to admit the evidence on the issue of liability, largely on the basis it was served some four months late and would be unfair to the SRA to admit it at that stage.

Mr Justice Chamberlain concluded that the medical evidence that had been adduced did not say that Mr Husain’s disability caused or even contributed to him tweeting antisemitic, racist and grossly offensive material over a period of nine months. As such, there was no link between his medical condition and these critical, objectionable features of his conduct. Therefore, even if the medical evidence had been admitted, it would not have been relevant to the Tribunal’s decision-making. In any event, there was a proper case management reason for excluding the evidence, on the basis it was served four months late and would have been unfair to the SRA to have admitted it.

This ground of appeal was therefore dismissed.

Ground 2: Article 10 ECHR

In respect of Article 10, the SDT held that its task was “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 its decision, the Tribunal said 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”.

Mr Justice Chamberlain commented that the Tribunal approached the issue of the tweets in the correct manner. They understood that there were two relevant questions in its analysis. First, whether the tweets were antisemitic, inappropriate and/or offensive. If so, whether that amounted to a breach of the SRA principles and professional conduct.

He found that the Tribunal clearly concluded that the tweets and correspondence were seriously offensive, even if their judgment did not expressly state that. Further, although the public has a right to freedom of expression under Article 10(1) ECHR, this is subject to certain limitations set out in Article 10(2) and the right is under Article 10(1) is not unlimited.

This ground of appeal was therefore dismissed.

Ground 3: The definition of antisemitism

There is no legal agreed definition of antisemitism.  However the SDT followed the approach taken in a previous case (SRA v Mahmood), which had been to use a synthesis of three definitions: the IHRA definition, the Oxford English dictionary definition and one offered by an expert who had given evidence.  The Tribunal essentially concluded that “there was a necessity for the Tweets in question to demonstrate a hatred or prejudice to Jews as an over-riding requirement”.  It then applied this to the Tweets in question by considering whether a reasonable person with all the relevant information would consider them to be antisemitic.

Mr Justice Chamberlain concluded that the Tribunal was correct to conclude that the number of tweets by Mr Husain over a number of months and given their language and context made it more likely than not that they were founded on hatred or hostility towards Jews.  He also observed that on reading the Tribunal’s judgment, they placed limited reliance on the expert evidence provided to them and in any event, the conclusion that the tweets were antisemitic could be seen to be correct and indisputable.

This ground of appeal was therefore dismissed.

Ground 4: The sanction was manifestly excessive

In reaching its decision on sanction, the SDT concluded that there were a number of aggravating features that meant that the only sanction appropriate to protect the public and public confidence in the profession for Mr Husain’s “ingrained behaviour” was to strike him off the Roll of Solicitors.

Mr Justice Chamberlain concluded that the Tribunal was entitled to come to the conclusion it did on the basis of the evidence before it. He said that its decision was not wrong in the sense of being “clearly inappropriate” or “outside the bounds of what the Tribunal could properly and reasonably decide”.  Therefore, he could not interfere with the Tribunal’s decision.

This ground of appeal was therefore dismissed.

Comment

The High Court has once again made it clear that the Article 10 right to freedom of expression is a qualified right that must be balanced against regulatory purposes, including protection of the public and upholding public confidence in the profession. This is in line with the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Adil v General Medical Council [2023] EWCA Civ 1261 (see our blog here).  Further, regulated professionals cannot claim that comments made in a ‘personal capacity’ are immune from disciplinary action. Upholding public confidence in the profession spans both professional and personal life, and so regulated professionals must be careful when posting something that could objectively be considered to be inappropriate, offensive or derogatory. This is particularly so where someone refers to their profession in their correspondence or on their social media profile. By doing so, they could be considered to be using that status to give “weight” or “credence” to their post.

However, not all inappropriate, offensive or derogatory posts and correspondence would necessarily be a breach of professional standards.  Each case must be considered on its own facts, and the Tribunal will consider the two issues separately.  Only if the material in question is sufficiently serious as to amount to a breach of professional standards is it likely to warrant a sanction.

Regulated professionals must therefore take care and exercise caution when corresponding, particularly in their personal capacity, on matters that could be considered to be controversial. If in doubt, they should err on the side of caution and not send or post their views.

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