PCS Issues Legal Advice For People Attending TUC March On Saturday
The public services trade union PCS has issued advice today for everyone attending the TUC's March For The Alternative this coming Saturday 26th March.
The advice based on a briefing from Thompsons Solicitors makes it clear that as opposed to what many in the media and government would have you believe, peaceful demonstrations held anywhere are a human right and not subject to the political doctrine of the day. Permission to march and demonstrate does not have to be sought from authorities as many seem to believe, nor does the right to gather in numbers in order to demonstrate. It is simply a good idea to work with the police if you are setting up a large demonstration and stop them from using public disorder laws against you.
The full document, available here to download in PDF form details the rights of peaceful demonstrators. Reading it, you can see why violence is in the interest of the state in order to deem a demonstration as being unlawful giving them the right to make arrests and break up demonstrations. Authorities or police officers personal dislike for the way in which demonstrations are conducted, providing they are peaceful, does not give them the right to break them up or try and prevent them.
The document begins:
Since the introduction of the Human Rights Act in 2000 there is a protected right to
peacefully protest.
The law protects peaceful communication and persuasion.
• Everyone has a right to assemble and protest peacefully
• The right to peaceful assembly is a fundamental right and is set out in Article 11 of
the Human Rights Act 1988.
• The police cannot ban public assembly altogether
• The police can impose conditions on location, numbers and length of assembly
But only to prevent serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious
disruption to the life of the community or if the purpose of the assembly is to
intimidate others.
Where people are peacefully demonstrating against job cuts then, provided this does not
result in damage to property, it is unlikely to breach such conditions.
Onerous conditions imposed by the police, such as limiting the time for a protest to 5 or 10
minutes or to 2 or 3 people,may amount to a breach of a protester’s right to assembly in
that they are effectively a ban and a ban is unlawful.
The leaflet further deals with advice on dealing with police tactics such as kettling which are designed to frighten, frustrate and prevents people from leaving demonstrations of their own free will. This in turn leeds to confrontation which can lead to violence, given the police an excuse to break up demonstrations and make arrests. Innocent people can be coerced into losing their tempers of show frustration against such tactics.
Download the legal advice document in pdf form here
Source: PCS / Thompsons Solicitors
