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characterised as perverse. We recognise that a finding of perversity is uncommon. We believe, however, that this Commission is in the (perhaps unusual) position of having before it all of the material that is relevant to this decision. In our view, that is a requirement of the 2000 Act and of the procedures adopted before this commission. The material available to us is, therefore, wider, more extensive and more detailed than the evidence that is commonly before a judge in the Administrative court.’
    As the legal battles raged, the European Council of Ministers, in an act of open defiance of the courts, renewed the EU proscription of the PMOI on 15 July 2008. On 4 December that year, the Court of First Instance annulled the renewed proscription of 15 July and once again ordered that the PMOI be delisted and their assets unfrozen. Despite this ruling, there were further attempts by the European Council, stoked up by pressure from Tehran, to defy the courts. But by mid-December, the Court of First Instance rejected, as ‘manifestly inadmissible’, all attempts by EU governments to delay implementation of their 4 December judgement. As a result, after a war of attrition that had raged for years, the PMOI were finally delisted in the EU on 26 January 2009. Justice had at last prevailed.
    The willingness of the UK, French and other EU governments to defy the courts was breathtaking. Although British judges in the POAC had gone into the substance and full details of the case and had ruled that the decision of the UK Home Secretary to maintain the PMOI on the UK list of proscribed organisations was ‘perverse’, the UK Government still trotted out a junior minister to make a fatuous announcement that the government ‘did not accept’ the court’s verdict and had decided to appeal. They tried every legal and political trick to defy the courts.
    The entire affair was marked by a long and disgraceful series of blunders by the Blair government at Westminster over its handling of the PMOI and relations with Iran in general. It was common knowledge that, as Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw had visited Tehran more often than any other capital in the world except Brussels and Washington. But the deals he struck with the fascist Mullahs left an indelible stain on Britain’s character. Straw had admitted in a BBC Radio interview that he placed the PMOI on the UK terror list at the direct request of the Mullahs, who greatly feared the ability of this popular opposition movement to topple their odious regime. The Mullahs further pressed Straw to place the PMOI on the EU’s terror list, threatening commercial penalties for UK interests in Iran if he refused to comply. Displaying characteristic weakness, Jack Straw had readily concurred, despite the fact that he had once been an open supporter of the PMOI as an Opposition Labour MP.
    No one would have guessed that EU bureaucrats, entrusted to enact and uphold the rule of law, would scramble to find ways to defy the courts, making a mockery of the rule of law upon which the institutions of the EU and European member states are founded. Violating the rule of law and placing the European Council of Ministers’ opinion above that of the EU’s highest courts in yet another pathetic attempt to appease Iran was both scandalous and shameful.
    In a speech in the European Parliament in Strasbourg I said:
    The decision by the Council of Ministers has stepped over recognized red lines in Europe. While the Mullahs’ President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling for the annihilation of Israel and, according to Western intelligence reports, Iran iswithin years of having the nuclear capability to carry out his threat, it ill befalls the European Council to continue its failed policy of appeasement. While Iranian Revolutionary Guards roam freely in Iraq, inflaming the insurgency, killing allied troops and murdering countless innocent civilians, the Council of Ministers should be confronting Tehran from a