Deeper threats to the right to protest affect us all
JVL Introduction
This report from Just Stop Oil (JSO) Coalition outlines what happened at the trial for “aggravated trespass” of a group of JSO protesters for blocking a road. While the Judge argued that they were “good people” who should “not feel guilty” for what they had done, he decided that the law required him to issue fines. A defence of ‘proportionality’ or of ‘necessity’ is blocked from being made in the case of ‘aggravated trespass’ and for ‘public nuisance’ charges. However, articles 9,10 and 11 of the 1998 Human Rights Act, based on the British initiated European Convention on Human Rights (1953), guarantees the right to protest. Could or should this right be balanced against the rights of others as it is for the charge of ‘wilful obstruction of the highway’?
And yet we see inconsistency in the application of the law; contrast their treatment with the acquittal of JVL’s Environment Officer, Tony Booth, whose road blocking was found to be proportional and within his rights by Judge Pilling on February 6th while David Nixon was issued on February 7th with a two-month prison sentence by Judge Reid, for contempt of court for explaining his actions by his concerns about impending climate catastrophes. He too had been blocking a road but had been charged with “public nuisance”. Judge Reid had forbidden him from mentioning the climate but he did so as he had found the inability to tell the jury why he had taken part in the protest “soul-destroying”.
The government has already limited the right to protest through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the more restrictive Public Order Bill is wending its way through the Parliamentary process, but the most worrying attempt to eradicate protest will come if talk of repealing the Human Rights Act becomes reality. Of course, the reality of environmental breakdown is unaffected by laws prohibiting protest. As conditions for life become more extreme, with heatwaves in the 40s centigrade and storms perhaps hammering at the Thames Barrier, the necessity – and proportionality – of acting against environmental catastrophes increasingly unarguable.
This article was originally published by Just Stop Oil on Thu 16 Feb 2023. Read the original here.
“You Should Feel Guilty for Nothing” says Judge, as he finds Seven Guilty and Acquits Two, for Disrupting Esso Terminal in Birmingham
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Good to see this sense of unity between JSO and JVL.
Does JVL have any links with Liberty, the organisation set up to protect human rights and civil liberties?
As a fellow JSO activist I am proud of, and stand in solidarity with, Paul and the team. I am a pensioner with 6 magnificent grandchildren. They should have a wonderful future to look forward to. Instead we are all increasingly terrified for the future. JSO will not stop until all new fossil fuel licences for extraction are revoked, in line with IPCC directives.