15th December 2006

The House of Lords handed down a landmark ruling on Wednesday on the scope of free speech and protest rights. The judgment found that anti war campaigners human rights of free speech and assembly had been violated by Gloucestershire police when the police prevented coaches attending an anti-war demonstration organised by Green party member Dave Cockcroft at RAF Fairford in March 2003.

Police stopped and searched 120 peace campaigners then sealed the coaches and escorted them back to London.

The demo was Gloucestershire's largest ever demonstration with an estimated 5000 people and speakers including Green MEP Dr Caroline Lucas, George Monbiot, Mark Thomas and Thom Yorke.

Organiser of the demonstration, Dave Cockcroft who is a Green party member and Stroud Town councillor, said: "It is ironic that the police violated human rights by detaining these coaches. These people were seeking to join the peaceful demonstration against an illegal war that has devastated Iraq and left over 100,000 dead."


The test case was brought Jane Laporte along with 120 other anti war campaigners who were prevented from attending a lawful protest at RAF Fairford in March 2003, just hours before the base was used for bombing raids on Iraq. The case was heard over three days in October this year. Giving the lead judgement of a unanimous court, Lord Bingham of Cornhill said that the case had: "raised[d] important questions on the right of the private citizen to demonstrate again government policy and the powers of the police to curtail exercise of that right."

They had done so wholly unlawfully in this case, their Lordships held, because the Human Rights Act had brought about “a constitutional shift” creating for the first time a right to protest which the common law had previously been  “reluctant and hesitant” to acknowledge (para 34 of the ruling). Freedom of expression was “an essential foundation of democratic society” (para 36) and there had been no reason to restrict it in this case. Rejecting the police’s argument that suspicions about some of the coach passengers entitled them to turn back everyone, Lord Bingham commented: "There was no reason (other than her refusal to give her name, which however irritating to the police was entirely lawful) to view the claimant as other than a committed, peaceful demonstrator. It was wholly disproportionate to restrict her exercise of her rights under articles 10 and 11 because she was in the company of others some of whom might, at some time in the future, breach the peace."

The campaigners had travelled in three coaches from London to attend a lawful and authorised demonstration at the airbase from which bombing raids on Iraq were about to be launched. They were stopped and searched en route by Gloucestershire police and then asked to reboard their coaches. The doors were then sealed by police who escorted them in convoy back to London. Both the High Court and Court of Appeal ruled that the forced return was unlawful, but approved the Polices’ decision to turn the protestors back. The Lords’ decision overruled the lower courts on this aspect of the case. An appeal by the police against the finding that they had unlawfully detained the campaigners on the return journey was also rejected.

Cllr Philip Booth, a Stroud District councillor and local Green party spokesperson said: "Under this government we have seen a steady erosion of the rights that underpin our democracy like the right to express dissent and to do so collectively with others in public. This decision is important and gives us the right to protest peacefully in all but extreme circumstances."

John Halford, a public law and human rights specialist at Bindman and Partners, represented the campaigners. He said today: "The Lords have given a principled judgement on where the line should and must be drawn: peaceful protest can only be prevented in the most extreme circumstances which are very far from this case. These campaigners wanted to protest lawfully against an unlawful war. The Lords have unhesitatingly said they had that right."

Jane Laporte in whose name the test case was brought fought a 3 ½ year legal battle to ensure that the police’s actions should not go unchecked: "The willingness of the police to bow to political pressure, by stifling dissent and arbitrarily detaining protestors in this way, brings the proper role of the police into question. They should, as the judgement found, be the facilitators not suppressors of peaceful protest. I am delighted the House of Lords has said their actions were completely unlawful and a human rights breach.”


Notes for editors:

Further background:

On 22nd March 2003, three days after the start of the US/UK war on Iraq, a demonstration organised by the Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors (GWI), attracted over up to 5,000 protestors to the airbase. Groups travelled to Fairford from 37 locations across the UK.  American B-52 planes flew from RAF Fairford airbase to bomb Baghdad (see http://www.fairfordpeacewatch.com/ ) and Fairford was the site of excessive policing during the war on Iraq. (Within 52 days (from 6 March 2003), police conducted over 2000 anti-terror searches in the vicinity.) GWI, Berkshire CIA and Liberty issued a dossier showing how stop and search powers of the Terrorism Act 2000 were misused by police. For the report "Casualty of War - 8 weeks of counter-terrorism in rural England" see http://www.gwi.org.uk/ and http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/  The Government estimated the added cost of policing RAF Fairford was £6.9 million.  The airbase continues to be upgraded for use by US Stealth (B2) Bombers, greatly expanding the US capacity to "invisibly" deploy tactical nuclear weapons anywhere in the world within hours. Further info at http://www.gwi.org.uk/ and http://www.atkinsglobal.com/skills/design/sectors/aviationdefence/jfsiraffai rford/

The police had argued, at the hearing in October, that they were in fact protecting the protestors' right to life, by preventing 120 of them from reaching protests at RAF Fairford (Gloucestershire). The officer in charge of policing the protests stated that, since the US military had reserved the right to use "deadly force" in the event of an intrusion into the base, "had a member of the public been killed or injured by one of the armed personnel guarding the B52 aircraft…the political consequences would have been extremely damaging to the coalition partners". Helen Wickham, a coach passenger, said: "I think it is deeply worrying that Gloucestershire police, confronted with the possibility of US troops shooting unarmed protestors, chose to defend the US use of lethal force over our right to protest. I wonder if there was pressure on them to do so."

This ruling will impact significantly on policing of future demonstrations and will have implications for the Austin/Saxby May Day 2001 cases against the Metropolitan Police to be heard early next year. On Mayday 2001, police detained thousands in Oxford Circus for seven hours to "prevent a breach of peace".

The Human Rights Act 1998 came into force in October 2000. It requires the police and other public authorities to avoid breaching key European Convention Human Rights Articles save where legislation makes this impossible. Amongst the key rights are Article 5 (deprivation of liberty must be justified in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law and on one of the five grounds listed in paragraph (1) of the Article), Article 10 (freedom of speech and expression) and Article 11 (freedom of assembly).

At common law a constable may arrest a person without warrant whom he or she reasonably believes will commit a breach of the peace in the immediate future, even though at the time of the arrest such person has not committed any breach. This power is subject to a number of strict restrictions, however: the belief must relate to an act or threatened act harming any person or, in his presence, his property, or which puts a person in fear of such harm; the belief must relate to the likely actions of the particular individual or individuals against whom the power is used; and when the particular individual is acting lawfully at the time the power is used, the threat of his committing a breach of the peace must be sufficiently real and imminent to justify the use of such a draconian power.

 
Contact details:

Fairford Coach Action is the name of the group of more than 90 passengers who have collectively decided to pursue a Judicial Review case against the police's actions on 22nd March 2003. Full background information is available on the website. Visit the site for links to the full judgement, related web articles, statements of support, and testimonial statements from coach passengers. http://www.fairfordcoachaction.org.uk/
John HalfordBindman and Partners 0207 833 4433 Jane Laporte (the claimant) can be contacted on 07817 483 167