BREAKING NEWS: We have a court date : Liberty

Posted: 29th October 2024

BREAKING NEWS: We have a court date.  

Liberty will be returning to court in the first week of December to defend democracy all over again.

The Government is appealing our legal victory against anti-protest laws which completely ignored the will of Parliament.

Here’s a reminder of how we got here.  

Back in May 2024, we took the Government to court over its protest laws. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman had lowered the threshold at which police could impose conditions on protests from ‘serious’ disruption to ‘more than minor’ disruption. Not only did we fundamentally disagree with this, but this change had already been democratically rejected by Parliament.  

And it went well. In fact, we won! The High Court said ‘serious’ couldn’t mean ‘more than minor’ and that the then-Home Secretary had acted unlawfully, meaning these anti-protest regulations are also unlawful.

A victory for democracy and the right to protest!  

However, the previous Government then launched an appeal against the judgment. We had hoped that the new Government would respect our democracy and drop the appeal – but it hasn’t. And the Court of Appeal has just listed the case for early December.

And while we’re being dragged back to court having already won, hundreds of people have been arrested or convicted under these regulations. Regulations that the High Court has ruled to be unlawful.  

We have urged the Government to reconsider and listen to the many people who have signed our petitions and donated to our fundraiser for the case.  

This is not a battle that Liberty will abandon. Our parliamentary democracy exists to make sure governments can’t just do whatever they want. That must be respected.  

We depend on your ongoing support to keep up the fight. If you would like to support this case, and our wider work in protecting the right to protest, please consider becoming a Liberty member today.  

We will be in touch to update you on the case as it develops. For now, we want to extend our thanks and appreciation for all your support throughout this legal battle.  

Best wishes, 

Katy Watts

Lawyer