Court rules Bahrain cannot rely on state immunity if section 5 of the State Immunity Act applies
The UK Supreme Court has dismissed the Kingdom of Bahrain’s appeal in a significant ruling on the scope of state immunity, holding by a majority that proceedings arising from alleged remote spyware surveillance may fall within the territorial tort exception in section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978.
The judgment in The Kingdom of Bahrain v Shehabi and another [2026] UKSC 25, handed down on 27 July 2026, considered whether Bahrain could rely on state immunity in proceedings brought by Dr Saeed Shehabi and Moosa Mohammed, who allege that individuals acting on Bahrain’s behalf hacked their computers while they were in the United Kingdom.
The respondents claim the alleged hacking amounted to harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and caused psychiatric injury after they learned of the alleged surveillance in or around August 2014 following publications by WikiLeaks and Bahrain Watch. The appeal proceeded on assumed facts, meaning the Supreme Court did not determine whether the allegations were true.
The central legal question was whether the respondents’ claims fell within the exception to state immunity created by section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978, which removes immunity in proceedings relating to personal injury or property damage caused by “an act or omission in the United Kingdom.”
The Supreme Court, by a majority comprising Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Hamblen and Lady Simler, upheld the decisions of both the High Court and the Court of Appeal, concluding that section 5 contains no requirement that the person carrying out the relevant act must be physically present in the United Kingdom.
Instead, the majority held that the statute requires only a legally causative act in the United Kingdom. The Court said the wording does not require every causative act to occur within the jurisdiction, nor does it import the presence requirement found in Article 11 of the European Convention on State Immunity.
For solicitors, the judgment provides important guidance on the territorial tort exception under section 5 of the 1978 Act. The majority confirmed that the location of the legally causative act—not the physical location of the foreign state’s agents—is the relevant statutory question. The Court also held that an act carried out through remote or automated means can constitute an act in the United Kingdom where the conduct takes effect within the jurisdiction in the manner required by section 5.
Applying that interpretation, the majority concluded that the alleged remote surveillance of computers located in the United Kingdom constituted conduct taking place in the United Kingdom for the purposes of section 5. It said the alleged surveillance represented a serious interference with the United Kingdom’s territorial sovereignty and that it made no difference that the surveillance was carried out through computer hacking rather than by physical presence.
The Court therefore held that the proceedings fall within the statutory exception to immunity, meaning Bahrain’s appeal was dismissed.
The decision was not unanimous. Lord Leggatt and Lord Burrows each delivered dissenting judgments. Lord Leggatt considered that an act is ordinarily performed where the actor is located, even if its effects occur elsewhere, and concluded that interpreting section 5 more broadly would be inconsistent with the legislation and international law. Lord Burrows likewise considered that section 5 should be interpreted consistently with Article 11 of the European Convention on State Immunity.
Because the appeal was dismissed, the Supreme Court said it was unnecessary to determine whether granting state immunity would have infringed the respondents’ right of access to a court under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.