Dr Jake Lynch is the subject of a landmark court case over his academic boycott of Israeli universities.Source: News Limited
SYDNEY University professor Jake Lynch has claimed significant early victories in the landmark court case brought against him by Israeli legal group Shurat HaDin for his academic boycott of Israeli universities.
In the Federal Court in Sydney yesterday, judge Alan Robertson rejected allegations Professor Lynch was a leader of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign in Australia. Justice Robertson also struck out Shurat HaDin’s allegation that Professor Lynch called for a boycott of Israeli academic Dan Avnon.
Shurat HaDin launched the action when Professor Lynch, who heads the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, turned down a request from Professor Avnon to support his application for a fellowship at Sydney University. The group claimed his action was racially discriminatory against Jewish Israelis.
Justice Robertson also struck out a paragraph claiming “a purpose of BDS movement campaigns is to inflict harm on Israeli persons or organisations’’. He gave Shurat HaDin 28 days to re-plead the paragraphs he struck out, and also ordered that it pay Professor Lynch’s costs.
The judge also said he would order Shurat HaDin to put up a bond to cover Professor Lynch’s legal costs should it lose the case, unless its lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, agreed to provide advance notice if he intended to sell or encumber his house and other assets.
He set a maximum amount of legal costs to whichever side loses the case, but at $300,000, three times what Mr Hamilton had sought.
While Shurat HaDin has the opportunity to recast the allegations and proceed with the case, Professor Lynch’s lawyers believe it will have to do considerably more to back them up.
“Judge Alan Robertson has struck out those parts of the claim that seek to underpin the factual basis of the allegations that Professor Jake Lynch has breached the Racial Discrimination Act,” a spokeswoman for his team said.
“Today’s judgments support what I’ve said all along — that I have done nothing wrong,’’ Professor Lynch said from England last night.
“I should be able to exercise my conscience in setting my own course of action with regard to the fellowship schemes linking the University of Sydney with the two Israeli universities, without that leading to my being taken to court.”
Mr Hamilton rejected Professor Lynch’s suggestion that he had achieved significant wins.
“Only a small portion of our statement of claim was struck out (10 paragraphs out of 171) and the judge gave us a great deal of assistance in how to re-plead them to make the facts clearer,” Mr Hamilton said.
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