Protest Banned in the UK

[Firewind]

So do you remember the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing bill. They wanted to make being a nuisance Illegal. Well now they have!
Bill stages — Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 — UK Parliament


The bill was given royal Assent last week and now they have made it into an Act of Law. The Bill technically can ban direct action and civil disobedience depending on how it is interpreted because there is literally no definition in the actual bill as to what a nuisance actually is. Police are able to use a lot of powers including the powers of Arrest without Warrant and the ability to seize property.

The wording in the bill is so shoddy, you can basically be arrested for questioning the police about it since there's a hell of a lot in there as to what constitutes "refusal to comply"

The full bill can be read here:

http://www.publications.parliament.u...0007/14007.pdf

[cidbahamut]

Re: Protest Banned in the UK

So basically you guys are a full fledged police state now?

[Malacite]

Re: Protest Banned in the UK

That's really fucked up.

[Feba]

Re: Protest Banned in the UK

1- Just because a term isn't defined in a given statute doesn't mean that there isn't (or aren't) an accepted definition (or definitions), provided either through other statutes, or through case law. Cursory google would lead me to believe that the act is referring to this: Nuisance in English law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2- Laws are generally designed with some degree of leeway; there are extremely few black and white laws. For example, most people can agree with the right to freedom of speech (as in the US 1st Amendment) and that murder is a crime. However, there are many situations in which reasonable people agree that speech should not be free (such as threats of injury, or statements that otherwise cause danger, such as the old 'shouting fire in a crowded theatre'). Courts are left to interpret given actions through these laws, so that actions which are clearly against the public interest can be dealt with, and actions which aren't intended to be targeted can be left alone. Not that this doesn't have unfortunate exceptions, but this is SOP for courts.

Not saying it's not a shit law, I haven't read it and have very little knowledge of English law, but in general, it's good to remember that the law isn't a dictionary. If you define "nuisance", then someone is just going to moan about some other word, until we're arguing about what the meaning of the word "is" is. Ultimately, definitions of things like that are left up to courts to decide, through a number of methods

[Carter]

Re: Protest Banned in the UK

Sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to the London Riots. It's not really that surprising that it is potentially a "shoddy law", we have plenty of ill-written laws.

Hopefully trials / precedents will eventually sort this out but it's not unlike recent governments to forget to define important aspects of a given Act.

Sad but true

[Firewind]

Re: Protest Banned in the UK

You do realise in the run up to this law coming into force, there has been a massive crackdown on protests, with various laws making large gatherings illegal, as well as the approval of weapons such as tazers, those bean bag guns and water cannons to break up crowds of people. Remember the Student Protests in 2010 and mass riots across the UK in 2011? They were used as an excuse to start a major crackdown, when it was a violent response to a two sets of peaceful protest that sparkled nationwide rioting in the first place.

There have also been laws passed allowing trials to be held behind closed doors without a jury, with any leak of the proceedings being a criminal offence. Add in a hell of a lot of different court orders, each one getting more silly than the last. Aside from injunctions are "Super Injunctions" which basically make naming anyone mentioned on it a criminal offence. The next step up is a "Hyper Injunction" which makes the mere mention that an injunction has been taken out a criminal offence.

A while ago the previous Government also made pulling someone off the street and retroactively changing the law before a charge is even brought against them a while, and it has been going on for a while. Quite a few of the UK's "donations" to Guantanamo Bay are people that were arrested in this manner and many of them still haven't been formally charged of a crime, nevermind found guilty of a crime in a Court of Law.

Plus you also need to add in all of the internet filtering and monitoring going on in the UK right now. As I mentioned in a previous thread (sources within the thread), in the UK, searches for websites the following are now filtered by ISPs by default:

• Games.
• Dating.
• Smoking.
• File Sharing.
• Alcohol.
• Drugs.
• Sex, Sexuality and Relationships.
• Web forums.
• Suicide.
• Eating Disorders.
• Web blocking circumvention tools.
• Esoteric Material.

All under the name of "Preventing Terrorism" and "Think about the Children!". The UK Government is very quickly taking out more and more legal obstacles towards turning the country into a full on Police State. Something made even more worrying by the sheer amount of information that passes through the UK on a daily basis.

Also if you take "nuisance" as defined in English Tort Law (which is an entirely Civil matter, this Act Criminalises it), which is something that "materially affects the reasonable comfort and convenience of life of a class of Her Majesty's subjects", it is still a massively vague and really open statement. There is also no way to really enforce this and the UK's Police forces are pretty notorious for selectively enforcing Public Order Offences anyway.

There's also the way the Government is slowly pushing its agenda into the media as well. The BBC, once neutral is now notoriously right wing due to the replacement if key leading staff in the organisation being replaced with Pro-Government staff, and is pretty much now the Government's mouthpiece with the illusion of political neutrality. There was the massive politicisation of the Police Force a few years back too where Police Commissioners basically have to be part of a Political Party and with all of the insane Gerrymandering that happens in the UK, they are all pretty much guaranteed to be pro-Government.

When discussing the UK Government, especially over the last 10 years or so, it is getting hard and harder not to invoke Godwin's Law each and every day. Especially with the rise of extreme right wing parties such as the BNP and UKIP, and the current Government doing more and more to erode Civil Rights from the people of the UK. Literally the only thing preventing them from treating Civil Rights as a mere suggestion if the EU, and even then, they treat the European Convention of Human Rights, and even condemnation from the UN as jokes and mere suggestions.

[Feba]

Re: Protest Banned in the UK

I'm not saying you don't live in a piece of shit police state. In fact, people often ask me about going to the UK, and I tell them I would avoid it like herpes.

I'm saying your complaints about the law are nearly invalid. Private nuisance is a civil tort, yes; public nuisance is a tort, yes, but also a crime. That's nothing new. What else would public nuisance even be? Keep in mind that, however vague a statement may be in defining a term, there are almost assuredly far more in depth tests, theories, ideals and concepts related to the idea, that go far more in depth than the statement given as a summation. In a common law system, there is also precedent, which given time will give many instances of when a law is and is not to be applied. Yes, the police selectively enforce laws. Welcome to law. Here's something even worse: prosecutors can choose who they wish to take to trial. In many systems, prosecutors have more practical power over who receives criminal punishment than the judges do (even more so where there are minimum sentencing laws, but prosecutors are allowed to arrange plea bargains below those limits).

Even if your claims are true (and they may be in practicality, if not the law itself), I don't really see how this law is making the situation in the UK any worse. I'm amazed most of you guys whine so much online, but don't take advantage of EU citizenship to get the fuck out of dodge.

[Malacite]

Re: Protest Banned in the UK

I wonder if there's even the slightest correlation to the Royal Family effectively going bankrupt. Bit of a stretch I know but you never know what kind of shady doings are going on behind closed doors.

[Carter]

Re: Protest Banned in the UK

I wish I was as bankrupt as they are, sometimes...

*edit* hang on, are we talking morally or financially

Ah well, there goes my chances of getting a peerage