Repeal of the Human Rights Act threatens us all

JVL Introduction

We reprint here a report from the Just Stop Oil Coalition on the trial for “aggravated trespass” of a group of protesters who had blocked distribution from an Esso oil terminal. Judge Wilkinson argued that they were “good people” who should “not feel guilty” for what they had done but nevertheless decided that the application of the law required him to issue fines. As things stand a defence of ‘proportionality’ or of ‘necessity’ is blocked from being made in the case of ‘aggravated trespass’ as it is also for charges of ‘public nuisance’. This seems like an anomaly since the 1998 Human Rights Act, enacted in law from the British initiated European Convention on Human Rights (1953), guarantees the right to protest in articles 9,10 and 11. One might suppose that this right could be balanced against the rights of others in such cases as it is for the charge of ‘wilful obstruction of the highway’.  A stark illustration of that contradiction is evident in the contrast between the acquittal of our environment officer, Tony Booth, whose blocking of the road was found to be proportional and within his rights by Judge Pilling on February 6^th 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 London Road but had been issued with a charge of “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”.

We know that the government is trying to stop protest through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the Public Order Bill now awaiting its third reading in the House of Lords. But the most powerful attempt to eradicate protest will come if this or the next government repeal the Human Rights Act.  As conditions for life become more extreme, with heatwaves in the 40s centigrade and storms perhaps hammering at the Thames Barrage, a plea of necessity to act against environmental catastrophes increasingly unarguable.

STOP PRESS: 22.02.23 –  Six Just Stop Oil protestors found Guilty of obstructing the highway

This article was originally published by Just Stop Oil (Court & Prison) on Thu 16 Feb 2023. Read the original here.