Shurat case ‘pumped up’
A LAWYER for Jake Lynch, the Associate Professor of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) at the University of Sydney, has accused Israeli civil rights group Shurat HaDin of attempting to financially damage and bankrupt its opponents in the NSW branch of the Federal Court on Tuesday.
A LAWYER for Jake Lynch, the Associate Professor of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) at the University of Sydney, has accused Israeli civil rights group Shurat HaDin of attempting to financially damage and bankrupt its opponents in the NSW branch of the Federal Court on Tuesday.
Shurat HaDin has launched a class action lawsuit against Lynch over his support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The impetus for the action was Lynch’s refusal in 2012 to assist Hebrew University’s Professor Dan Avnon with an application for a Zelman Cowen Scholarship to conduct research in Australia.
Shurat HaDin claims the refusal was based on Avnon being a Jew of Israeli ethnic origin.
But in court on Tuesday, Lynch’s lawyer Yves Hazan, who is Jewish, called for Shurat HaDin’s statement of claim to be thrown out on the basis that it lacked specifics.
He called the action “embarrassing”, a “pumped-up claim” and an extremely weak case which was “poorly pleaded and omits material facts”.
Addressing Lynch’s refusal to assist Avnon, Hazan asked Justice Alan Robertson: “What was his obligation to sign documents?”
He added that the case was further undermined by the fact that Avnon has now commenced the fellowship, having been sponsored by a different department.
Shurat HaDin solicitor Akiva Hamilton argued that the statement of claim has been brought under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act rather than the Racial Discrimination Act.
“One does not have to plead out every element,” he said.
But Robertson said Shurat HaDin’s case often lacked clear facts linking Lynch’s support of BDS with specific acts of racial discrimination. “You’ll have to do a lot of work to persuade me of the correctness of that position,” he said.
Avnon has not been asked to be part of the action; and neither had he asked to be withdrawn from it.
“I do hope that if the outcome would be that Mr Lynch and people like him would be advised to be more inclusive in their attitude to … people whose states they do not like – if the court would advise him to back down from that stance … it would be a good signal to the world,” he told The AJN earlier this month.
The case has been adjourned to April 24.
EVAN ZLATKIS AND GARETH NARUNSKY
Shurat HaDin solicitor Akiva Hamilton.
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