By Ann Higgins
Photo by Deniz Fuchidzhiev on Unsplash
It seems that protests are in the news, with an estimated 7 million turning out in the US to protest against Trump in a second “no Kings” protest, and many more joining in all over the world. Trump and his cronies must have been very disappointed that having tried to pretend that all those involved would be violent anarchists, the protests turned out to be entirely violence-free, but for 22 arrests of right-wing counter protesters who were unable to contain their ire. Trump 0, No Kings protestors 7 million. Talking of protests, many of you may remember the widely publicised arrest of local retired Cornish magistrate Deborah Hinton when she and 100 or so others protested outside Truro Cathedral a few months ago allegedly in support of Palestine Action, a group which had recently been proscribed by the then Home Secretary for being a terrorist organization. If convicted, she and other protestors charged with the same offence face up to 6 months in prison.
The ban was imposed following the damage done to two military aircraft at Brize Norton on 20 June, allegedly by the group which has existed since 2020. An application for judicial review was immediately launched by one of its co-founders, Huda Ammori, and on 30th July, a High Court judge granted permission for the JR to proceed on two of the eight grounds pleaded. The then Home Secretary appealed and after some interim hearings, on 17 October the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal by the new Home Secretary and allowed Ammori to add four more grounds of appeal to those already due to be heard at the substantive hearing of the application for JR listed in November. For those who are interested in the finer details of the legal issues raised, I recommend this article by Joshua Rozenberg.
As Rozenberg says, the strongest ground may be that the ban interferes with the rights of protestors to freedom of expression and assembly under Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. If successful, the charges against all those arrested and charged for this offence would have to be dropped. I look forward to seeing those on the right who are currently calling for the UK to leave the ECHR finding themselves supporting a Labour Home Secretary arguing that it should not apply in this case, if that’s what she decides to do of course.
