Part 3 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which deals with public order, creates an offence of ‘intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance’ (cl 59).
In its report published this week on the draft legislation, however, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said peaceful protests were, ‘by their nature liable to cause serious annoyance and inconvenience and criminalising such behaviour may dissuade individuals from participating’. It said existing laws already deal with public nuisance offences and the current drafting risks the new offence being broader than the common law offence it would replace.
Instead, the committee recommended ‘the introduction of express statutory protection for the right to protest, setting out the obligation on public authorities to refrain from interfering unlawfully with the right but also the duty to facilitate protest’.
The committee called for the complete removal of some clauses from the bill, including a trigger for imposing conditions based on noise. The committee said: ‘This strikes at the very heart of why people gather together to protest―to have their voices heard.’
The committee said new powers to impose conditions on one-person protests in England and Wales should be dropped, and clauses that increase penalties for breaching conditions placed on protests should be removed.
Harriet Harman MP, chair of the committee, said: ‘The government proposals to allow police to restrict “noisy” protests are oppressive and wrong.
‘The government put forward new powers in areas where the police already have access to powers and offences which are perfectly adequate. Noisy protests are the exercises of the lungs of a healthy democracy.
‘We are calling for the right to protest peacefully to be given explicit statutory protection.’
