Below is an Essay I wrote for the Doughty Chambers Law Essay Competition (with a few adjustments made). This essay was written with the most current legal information at the time.
Disruption — an interpretation of an action that could send you to prison. It can ultimately be defined as serious disruption to the community's life, by way of physical obstruction, hindering day-to-day activities and delaying essential goods. This is the new meaning the government has provided on the term ‘disruption’ included in the Public Order Act of 2023. When protesting, the primary aim is to bring awareness to a serious, topical issue, and how people do so often varies. Of course, some individuals choose to do so in a very peaceful manner, through amnesty or petitions, others resort to roadblocks, public disturbance and general disruption. Through the Policing and Public Order Acts of 2022 and 2023, the criminalisation of ‘disruption’ has increased substantially as the police have been given more control on deciding what is and isn’t ‘serious disruption’. However, this rising control is symbiotic with the rise of controversy, as the right to protest, freedom to be free from discrimination and democratic rights are thus limited to a significant degree.
The Policing Act of 2022 induced the ‘Noise Trigger’, thus limiting the scope of protests to an even greater scale. The scale of disruption is now extended to intangible aspects, such as noise pollution. Individuals are invited to consider: how many people will be affected, how long the impact will last, and how intense the impact is to be. However, what the law does not take into consideration is the difficulty of controlling such factors, it is largely due to the volume of people who attend the protest, and thus it is impossible to respect this law without limiting the amount of people who can support a cause of their respective choice.
Furthermore, the implementation of the ‘Noise Trigger’ is taken one step further as any noise susceptible to the interpretation of ‘disruption’ within the UK Parliament’s ‘controlled area’ can be eliminated without democratic debate, thus giving the government full, absolute power at the expense of the British individual. Ultimately, this obstruction of noise does not allow for every single individual who is willing to protest for a passionate cause in a realistic world, and instead thus cherry-picks a few individuals. This is at length unfair, as it obstructs the right to protest in a democratic society.
Moreover, even when individuals actively make efforts to foster a peaceful protest, instead of being recognised, this effort is shut down. The use of Static Demos Protests is often an alternative used to traditional protest marches due to their calmer nature. However, this distinction has been overlooked as the Policing Act has implemented restrictions, levelling static demos to a march. As a result, the most fundamental, primordial aspects of a protest are controlled by an external party: location, number and time. Focusing more strictly on the number of people, the new limitations have also created the possibility for restrictions on a one-person protest. If the police were to decide that a one-person protest could create noise, they have the ability to shut it down. Instead of creating an equal platform for deliberation and partnership between the police force and civilians, the act creates a stark dichotomy in the power imbalance between the two. It ultimately gives the police an extensive range of power whilst diminishing the right to protests for consequential individuals. Most importantly, the possibility for criminal offence due to protest has increased astronomically, rendering the expression of opinion and passion intimidating.
Previously, an individual could only be subject to criminal offences if they ‘knowingly’ disrupted the quotidian life of civilians. However, law now assumes that all the conditions needed for protest and failure to do so may lead to offences. In addition to this, the penalties for these offences have been increased by 3 months and fines by a subsequent £1500. This thus lowers the bar for what is deemed as an offence. All these factors combined decrease the confidence and willingness of individuals to go out and protest for a cause of their choice. Instead of being focused on their important issue, people become preoccupied with fear and the fear of legal consequences. Moreover, the conditions are so specific that individuals could break them subconsciously, leading them to be put off protesting. This creates a substantial issue as the descent in protests is not resultant of an increase in political stability and equity for all, but rather a consequence of fear and threatening legislation. However, the UK is not the only country implicated in this issue.
Globally, there is a trend of the militarization of the police force as well as an increase in force used to combat such protests, damaging the integrity and importance of protests. Historically, protests have been seminal to the change of inequality and the catalyzation of the greater good. From the Boston Tea Party of 1773 to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, protests and civilian uprisings have instrumentalized systematic and social change, so much so it has led to inter-country rebellions. In the case of the Boston Tea Party, American civilians protested against the authoritarian British state and kick-started a wave of violence throughout the entire country. Although violence is not the desirable resolution to political inequality, without such, the entirety of the United States as we know them, would simply cease to exist. In this example, the collective will of the people and general population counteracted the autocratic rule of the British government, as the needs of the masses became significantly more important than the desires of the few, dictatorial nobles. What we can take from this historical event was the power of the people, so much so it was able to change their state.
However, it is naive to omit the danger and harm protests may hypothetically cause. Understandably, the government would aim to reduce the obstruction of day-to-day activities such as commuting to work and blocking ambulances from their path, this is one of the biggest arguments in favour for the limitation of protest. Of course, there is always the possibility protests can be taken one step too far and cause tangible harm. These concerns became even more prominent after the Extinction Rebellion Protests in 2018, and affirmed again with the Just Stop Oil protests last year. The general public’s reaction is rich with animosity. However this could be managed in a fashion which does not limit the right to protest, rather reorganise it. Instead of increasing the chances for criminal offence and sanctions, the government could aim to work more closely with activists as well as the designation of specific days to protest. Through these efforts, the rights of individuals are not limited but instead organised in a way which does not stunt daily life.
With the limitation of freedom of speech and to be free of discrimination, the state gathers a more autocratic position. The foundation of democracy lies within the ability to shed light on key, pressing issues which thus hinder the quality of life of everyday people. The fashion in which we choose to do so was once a personal choice. Although not directly prohibiting the right to protest, the limitations render it somewhat impossible to do so. Instead of being preoccupied with their cause, individuals are now left to fret over the possibility of prison time, fines, or the inability to even carry out their protest — no matter how peaceful they intend it to be. Ultimately, limiting the right to protest is a limitation on human rights. It is a direct infringement upon the freedom to be free from discrimination and freedom of speech and is a way in which the state can suppress the negative attention it may receive from externalities. Instead of accepting the variation of views which are quintessential to modern society, the Policing and Public Order Acts employ such terms as ‘disruption’ and ‘public nuisance’ to disincentive people to speak up about issues close to their hearts.
Written by Aurore Lebrun
Wow!!
Really interesting points made