A victory for pro-democracy campaigners who have been resisting the government’s assault on the right to protest
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s anti-protest measures were unlawful, the High Court has ruled and has called for the measures to be quashed.
Following a landmark legal challenge from human rights organisation Liberty, the High Court ruled that the Government had acted unlawfully in creating legislation which gave the police ‘almost unlimited’ powers to restrict protests, which had no legal basis.
In what is a victory for pro-democracy campaigners who have been resisting the government’s assault on the right to protest, the Court found that the then Home Secretary Suella Braverman passed anti-protest measures in June 2023 despite having not been given the power by Parliament to do so.
Braverman pushed through the changes which allowed officers to curtail anything which caused “more than minor” disruption. The broadening of police powers led to hundreds of protesters being arrested as a result, which included climate activist Greta Thunberg.
So much for the Tories being the party of ‘free speech’. The ruling also comes at a time when the ministers are considering new police powers to curtail pro-Palestinian marches.
In making it easier for the police to criminalise protesters, Braverman was found to have both acted outside her powers and to have failed to consult properly over regulations that would be likely to increase prosecutions of protesters by a third.
Lord Justice Green and Mr Justice Kerr said that in pushing through such draconian powers, the government had overreached in defining “serious disruption” as merely “more than minor” and that it had been wrong to consult only with law enforcement agencies about the repercussions of the change.
The Lord Justices also said that the government had ignored parliament’s request to define what “serious disruption” meant – and widened the definition instead.
The Government has already announced that it is appealing the ruling to the Court of Appeal.
Akiko Hart, Liberty’s director, said: “This ruling is a huge victory for democracy, and sets down an important marker to show that the Government cannot step outside of the law to do whatever it wants.
“We all have the right to speak out on the issues we believe in, and it’s vital that the Government respects that. These dangerous powers were rejected by Parliament yet still sneaked through the back door with the clear intention of stopping protesters that the Government did not personally agree with, and were so vaguely worded that it meant that the police were given almost unlimited powers to shut down any other protest too.
“This judgment sends a clear message that accountability matters, and that those in power must make decisions that respect our rights.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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