Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Ra­jah-Khan, SC, has called on judges to treat for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi’s pub­lic com­ments on the Hadeed pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion case as con­tempt of court, ac­cus­ing him of mis­rep­re­sent­ing the Privy Coun­cil’s po­si­tion and dis­cussing mat­ters that re­main be­fore the courts.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Khan said he con­demned “in the strongest way pos­si­ble,” Al-Rawi’s ac­tions, claim­ing he had mis­con­strued the Privy Coun­cil’s state­ments while com­ment­ing pub­licly on high-pro­file mat­ters that are still be­fore the courts.

“It is en­tire­ly be­wil­der­ing that an at­tor­ney such as Mr Al-Rawi would con­duct him­self in this man­ner,” Khan said in an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to com­ments Al-Rawi made ear­li­er this week on the case.

He al­so ques­tioned whether Al-Rawi was able to sep­a­rate his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

“What is un­clear is whether he is able to dis­tin­guish his role in pol­i­tics from his role in law,” he said.

Khan ar­gued that lawyers should not dis­cuss in­ter­pre­ta­tions or po­ten­tial out­comes of sub ju­dice mat­ters to in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion, par­tic­u­lar­ly where they are rep­re­sent­ing par­ties in those pro­ceed­ings.

“As the pres­i­dent of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, I am call­ing on judges in­volved in this mat­ter to deal with his ac­tions as ex­act­ly that, con­tempt of court,” Khan said.

Khan al­so de­scribed it as an em­bar­rass­ment that the Privy Coun­cil’s Reg­is­trar is­sued a sec­ond clar­i­fi­ca­tion af­ter say­ing the par­ties ap­peared to be “labour­ing un­der a mis­con­cep­tion.”

He called on the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty to con­demn Al-Rawi’s con­duct and urged the Law As­so­ci­a­tion to re­spond.

The state­ment fol­lows a clar­i­fi­ca­tion is­sued by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, af­ter pub­lic com­men­tary sur­round­ing cor­re­spon­dence from the Privy Coun­cil in the State’s ap­peal in­volv­ing Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice said the Privy Coun­cil had ac­cept­ed the State’s ap­peal and sched­uled it to be heard dur­ing its Oc­to­ber 2026 term. It said the court had not re­fused the ap­peal, but had de­clined to hear the Hadeeds’ re­quest for an ex­pe­dit­ed hear­ing be­fore the court’s sum­mer re­cess, in­stead in­di­cat­ing they could ap­ply sep­a­rate­ly to lift the stay keep­ing them in de­ten­tion.

Af­ter me­dia re­ports sug­gest­ed the State had been “de­feat­ed” or “de­nied” be­fore the Privy Coun­cil, the Reg­is­trar is­sued a fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion say­ing the par­ties ap­peared to be “labour­ing un­der a mis­con­cep­tion” and ex­plain­ing that any ap­pli­ca­tion to lift the stay would be dealt with speed­i­ly on the pa­pers.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice warned that in­ten­tion­al mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of court de­ci­sions or di­rec­tives could amount to con­tempt of court and urged lawyers and the me­dia to en­sure pub­lic com­men­tary on the mat­ter is ac­cu­rate.