So now we know. Those seeking protection from religious fascism can rely on the British judiciary to deliver them up to it on a plate. When the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that Denbigh High School had acted unlawfully in forbidding Shabina Begum from wearing a full length jilbab that covered her entire body apart from her face and hands, the 16 year-old schoolgirl promptly showed just what was at stake here by reading a highly political statement. In this she called the court’s decision “a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry”. Reading from a statement, with her brother at her side, she blamed the school’s decision on hostility to Muslims after the September 11 terrorist attacks. “As a young woman growing up in a post-9/11 Britain, I have witnessed a great deal of bigotry from the media, politicians and legal officials,” she said. “This bigotry resulted from my choice to wear a piece of cloth, not out of coercion, but out of my faith and belief in Islam. It is amazing that in the so-called free world I have to fight to wear this attire.”’

It was immediately obvious that this girl was being used by extremists. Sure enough, it was reported today that she has been backed by Hizb ut Tahrir, a group that wants to see Sharia law in Britain and the restoration of the global Islamic caliphate, and has been banned in Germany and the Middle East. Indeed, although some Muslims welcomed the judgment – including the Muslim Council of Britain, whose claim to be ‘moderate’ becomes more unsustainable with every passing day – others were dismayed, and rightly so. The Telegraph reported:

'But Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, said: "This may be a victory for human rights but it is also a victory for fundamentalism."'

Quite so. For the very wearing of this garment is a political statement, declaring in effect the supremacy of Sharia law. It is therefore an act of aggression against the British state. It is also an act of aggression against other Muslims who do not subscribe to this extremism. The school was well aware of this; indeed, it was one of the main reasons why it forbade the jilbab. This is, after all, a school with a Muslim head teacher, many Muslim pupils and where the school uniform already permits shalwar kameez to be worn. And as the court judgment makes clear, the head understood what the judges patently did not – that permitting this garment to be worn would expose other pupils to intimidation:

‘She said that she had been given the firm impression that a number of girls relied on the school to help them resist the pressures from the more extreme groups. She was afraid that if the school uniform were to be adapted to include the jilbab these girls would be deprived of proper protection and would feel abandoned by those upon whom they were relying to preserve their freedom to follow their own part of the Islamic tradition. She also referred to the picketing that had taken place "by groups of mainly young men who would appear to be from the more extreme Muslim traditions".’

The assistant head elaborated:

'"Several staff have been approached by non-Muslim pupils saying that they are afraid of people wearing the jilbab, as they perceive this form of dress to be associated with extreme views. This makes them feel vulnerable. Whilst I would not consider it right to pander to the prejudices or fears of some pupils, I think it would be most unfortunate if some pupils were to be held in fear by others, or regarded as in some way separate, because of the clothes they wear. Similarly this view has also been reflected by some Muslim girls who have indicated to staff that they do not wish to wear the jilbab, as this would identify them as belonging to extreme Muslim sects. They do not wish to be identified with such people...

At the Appeal hearing the Claimant indicated that although she does not regard Muslims who wear the shalwar kameeze as bad people, she does think better Muslims wear the jilbab. I would not wish to see the introduction of two classes of Muslim, the inferior class that wears the shalwar kameeze and the better Muslim who wears the jilbab. In my view that would lead to real risk of pressure being brought upon Muslim girls to wear the jilbab or be regarded as religious inferiors. I would fear that this could lead to some girls feeling pressured into wearing the jilbab when they would prefer to wear the shalwar kameeze and might wish to avoid being classified with the kinds of people they believe wear the jilbab."’

But now Denbigh High School has been prevented from protecting its pupils from such intimidation, pressure and religious fanaticism by three bone-headed judges from the British kamikaze human rights tendency. Not, of course, that they could ever admit to such a thing. Indeed, Lord Justice Mummery observed:

‘In some quarters this decision may be seen as an instance of the court and/or the claimant overruling the Headteacher and the Governors of the School, undermining their authority on an internal school matter and interfering in the running of the School. That would be a misconception. The role of the court is confined to deciding whether the claimant was unlawfully excluded from the School and unlawfully denied her right to manifest her religion. The court has found that the relevant issues were, from a legal aspect, approached from the wrong direction. The result is that there was unlawful treatment of the claimant. As already explained, this does not mean that would be impossible for the School, if the matter were approached from the right direction, to justify the school uniform policy with regard to another pupil adopting the same position as the claimant.’

Uh-huh. And so just what, pray, is the right direction? Lord Justice Brooke spelled it out:

‘The decision-making structure should therefore go along the following lines: 1) Has the claimant established that she has a relevant Convention right which qualifies for protection under Article 9(1)? 2) Subject to any justification that is established under Article 9(2), has that Convention right been violated? 3) Was the interference with her Convention right prescribed by law in the Convention sense of that expression? 4) Did the interference have a legitimate arm? 5) What are the considerations that need to be balanced against each other when determining whether the interference was necessary in a democratic society for the purpose of achieving that aim? 6) Was the interference justified under Article 9(2)? The School did not approach the matter in this way at all. Nobody who considered the issues on its behalf started from the premise that the claimant had a right which is recognised by English law, and that the onus lay on the School to justify its interference with that right. Instead, it started from the premise that its uniform policy was there to be obeyed: if the claimant did not like it, she could go to a different school.’

In other words, a school must not consider first and foremost its duty to safeguard its pupils from intimidation and fanaticism. No no; this is the wrong direction from which to approach an issue. It must instead start from the hallowed sanctity of an individual extremist’s human rights – in the judgment, delicately referred to as a ‘minority’ viewpoint – regardless of the way this undermines a head teacher's judgment, regardless of a school’s right to set its own uniform policy, and above all regardless of the dangers this poses to others.

Our senior judiciary has now become a positive menace to the liberties for which we are fighting. Naïve to the point of idiocy, they are so blinded by their politically correct obsession with minority rights and the need to follow slavishly the socially destructive and implacable logic of human rights law that they cannot even grasp that what they are being asked to do will actually imperil members of a minority at the hands of their own extremists.

In the great row over Home Secretary Charles Clarke’s draconian control orders, the argument is that the judiciary should take control of anti-terror procedures in order to protect our fundamental liberties from untrustworthy politicians. But the terrible truth is that the English judiciary can no longer be trusted to safeguard us. Dangerous people threaten us; and the English judges have become their useful idiots, with human rights law the weapon with which British society can be used to destroy itself.