Tag Archives: liberty

Liberty launches lawsuit against Suella Braverman for overriding Parliament on protest powers

Suella Braverman: it seems she’ll be bringing that glower to a judge in the High Court, sometime in the near future.

The organisation Liberty, that challenges injustice, defends freedom and campaigns to make sure everyone in the UK is treated fairly, is taking Home Secretary Suella Braverman to court.

The action comes after Braverman overrode Parliament to change the Public Order Act in order to give police a free hand to arrest anybody carrying out an act of protest, depending on how disruptive officers think it is.

Here’s what Liberty has to say about it:

Human rights organisation Liberty has started legal action against the Home Secretary Suella Braverman over new anti-protest legislation which it says that she is unlawfully bringing in by the back door despite not having been given the powers to do so by Parliament.

In a pre-action letter sent to the Home Secretary, Liberty said that plans to give the police more powers to impose restrictions on protests that cause ‘more than minor’ disruption are unlawful.

The move – which uses secondary legislation to bring the powers into force – violates the constitutional principle of the separation of powers because the measures have already been rejected by Parliament.

By bringing in these powers, the Government has been accused of breaking the law to give the police ‘almost unlimited’ powers to shut down protests due to the vagueness of the new language.

The Government’s plans to lower the threshold of what constitutes ‘serious disruption’ at a protest were previously voted out of the Public Order Act by Parliament earlier this year (30 January).

Liberty says the Home Secretary has now changed the law entirely in a way that is an overreach of her power – defining ‘serious disruption’ as anything that causes ‘more than minor’ disruption.

A cross party parliamentary group committee has recently said this is the first time the Government has sought to makes changes to the law through secondary legislation that have already been rejected by Parliament when introduced in primary legislation.

Liberty’s letter to the Home Secretary says:  

  • The Secretary of State is seeking to amend the threshold on protest powers set by Parliament by the back door in ways that expand the powers of the police to restrict protest activity.
  • Parliament only gave powers to clarify the law, and not change it entirely. Therefore, Parliament cannot have intended to give the Secretary of State power to amend primary legislation in a way which circumvents the will of Parliament because this would incur on the constitutional principle of the separation of powers.
  • The making of the Serious Disruption Regulations would be unlawful for being an unjustified interference with the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty.
  • The new legislation was not consulted on fairly, as is required by law. The Government only invited in parties it knew would agree with the proposals, such as the police, but did not ask groups who might have had reasonable concerns.

Katy Watts, Lawyer at Liberty, said:  

“We all want to live in a society where our Government is open, transparent and respects the rules. But, as we’ve seen today, the Home Secretary has not abided by any of these.

“The Home Secretary has side-lined Parliament to sneak in new legislation via the back door, despite not having the powers to do so.

“This has been done deliberately in a way which enables the Government to circumvent Parliament – who voted these same proposals down just a few months ago – and is a flagrant breach of the separation of powers that exist in our constitution.

“This is yet another power grab from the Government, as well as the latest in a long line of attacks on our right to protest, making it harder for the public to stand up for what they believe in.

“The wording of the Government’s new law is so vague that anything deemed ‘more than a minor’ disturbance could have restrictions imposed upon it.

“In essence, this gives the police almost unlimited powers to stop any protest the Government doesn’t agree with.

“This not only violates our rights, but the way it’s been done is simply unlawful. This same rule was democratically rejected earlier this year, yet the Home Secretary has gone ahead and introduced it through other means regardless.

“We’ve launched this legal action to ensure this overreach is checked and that the Government is not allowed to put itself above the law to do whatever it wants. It’s really important that the Government respects the law and that today’s decision is reversed immediately.”

Source: LIBERTY LAUNCHES LEGAL ACTION AGAINST HOME SECRETARY FOR OVERRIDING PARLIAMENT ON PROTEST POWERS – Liberty

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This cynical move shows Keir Starmer is turning Labour into a members-only club

For the many? It seems “the many” are being pushed out of the Labour Party – unless they are friends of Keir Starmer.

Pretty soon, the only people allowed to be members of the Labour Party will be those in Keir Starmer’s inner circle.

That’s why the party leadership is tailoring its conditions for proscribing members – automatically excluding them in retrospect for activities with outside or formerly-affiliated organisations – to ensure the current leader’s friends don’t suffer the effects meant for others.

The latest groups to be proscribed are Labour Left Alliance (LLA), Socialist Labour Network and the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) – but there is a singular exception:

Regarding AWL, members are excluded for participating in events including the annual conference except for debating with members of the organisation.

This is because Luke Akehurst, secretary of the far-right Labour First, has taken part in such an event and Starmer doesn’t want to lose him.

Luke’s a member of the club, you see. He gets a free pass. You don’t.

Steve Walker of the Skwawkbox blog is right: “The shameless hypocrisy of the Labour right knows no bounds. Just as Starmer’s ‘zero tolerance of antisemitism’ turned out to mean ‘a lot of tolerance for antisemitism as long as it’s a right-winger’, it was always clear that expulsion rules were only being applied to left-wingers.

“But now those rules are being specifically written to ensure that favoured henchmen are explicitly exempt – and only those favoured henchmen.”

And Labour MP Clive Lewis admitted that the move shows his own party sliding into authoritarianism and a “crisis of democracy”:

Simply put, the Labour Party is turning into a members-only club for friends of Keir Starmer.

They get all the perks.

If you’re a socialist and you’re still a member of that party, then get used to dreaming about democracy – because you’re never going to have it again.

 

Source: Labour tailors new expulsion rules to protect right-winger Akehurst – SKWAWKBOX

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Priti Patel has stuffed her anti-protest Bill with even MORE dictatorial attacks on liberty

Priti Patel: beneath that smug smile lurks nothing but pure evil. And nearly 14 million people wholeheartedly voted for her to strip them of their human rights and liberties.

Who knew that Boris Johnson’s Tory government, elected on a landslide because it promised us “sunlit uplands” of freedom, would prove to be the greatest threat to liberty in the history of the United Kingdom?

Well… Vox Political did, obviously, because I wrote about it before the 2019 general election. Perhaps people were deterred from reading it by the constant lies about This Writer being an anti-Semite, or the lies that only the Tory-biased mass media could possibly be able to give you the facts.

At the time, I wrote: “Page 48 of the Conservative Party manifesto… states: “We will update the Human Rights Act and administrative law to ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government.” It means: We will remove your right to protest against our dictatorship and if you try to stop us, we will use the police and the armed forces to PUT YOU DOWN.

“If you vote Conservative on December 12, that is what you are demanding.”

And nearly 14 million people, led by the nose by people like Laura Kuenssberg, Andrew Marr and Robert Peston, merrily voted away the hard-won liberties enjoyed by the other 54 million of us as well.

Now we find that, having already introduced dictatorial anti-protest measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill last March, Home Secretary Priti Patel has apparently decided, halfway through its progress through Parliament, that it is not harsh enough and has amended it to make it even worse.

And this is a Bill that proposes outlawing protest that makes any noise or disturbs, in any way, a single person (thereby obviating the point of any protest, which is to draw attention to the issue under protest)!

Here’s Nadia Whittome with the headlines:

So “stop and search” powers, currently used by police if they have “reasonable grounds for suspecting” someone is carrying certain items or something which could be used to violate certain laws, like burglary or theft – and habitually abused by them to victimise people of colour – are being expanded, rather than restricted.

The Bill proposes that they now be used “whether or not the constable has any grounds for suspecting that the person… is carrying a prohibited object” in order to avoid “serious disruption” or a “public nuisance”. So police will be able to stop and search anybody, for any reason that comes into their heads.

Anyone obstructing a stop and search during a protest risks imprisonment for nearly a year. This is how dictatorships behave.

Two new amendments appear to be intended to stop the Insulate Britain protesters who have been supergluing themselves to roads – but the wording is so loose that it may be used indiscriminately against the general public.

So Amendment 319A creates an offence of “locking on”, or carrying equipment which might facilitate it, targeting anyone who attaches themselves to “a person, to an object or to land”. It could equally be applied to protestors who link arms during a sit-down protest, or even hold hands – or to people walking past a protest, having nothing to do with it, who just happen to be carrying a fixative of any kind. Such a person could also find him- or herself in prison for 51 weeks.

Isn’t it handy for Patel that outlawing the kind of protest carried out by Suffragettes a century ago means she’ll be able to get on and deport all those black people she hates so much, without being stopped by people blocking the road outside detention centres. She knew what she was doing.

And then there’s the new ASBO for people who want to protest against Tory dictatorship:

The most far-reaching and alarming part of the legislation is called an SDPO, or Serious Disruption Prevention Order. It is one of the most egregious assaults on individual freedom we’ve seen in modern legislation.

An SDPO is basically a protest Asbo. It can be imposed on anyone convicted of a “protest-related offence”. This category alone is extremely broad. It potentially applies, under the provisions of the bill itself, to the examples above – possessing superglue near a demonstration, or holding hands during a protest.

even that is not enough. Amendment 342M.2.iii allows it to be imposed on people whose activities “were likely to result in serious disruption”. In other words, you do not even have to have been convicted of a crime. You do not even need to have caused disruption. It’s enough that you might have.

Once the order is imposed, it eradicates your rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Those under an order can be forced to report to the authorities whenever the courts demand it, as often as they demand it. They must “present themselves to a particular person at a particular place at… particular times on particular days”.

They can also be prohibited from being at a certain place, or possessing certain items, or participating in certain activities, or socialising with certain people, for up to two years. They can be blocked from using the internet to “encourage” people to “carry out activities related to a protest”. Someone who used their social media account to promote a demonstration could be found in breach of the order. The SDPOs are a full-scale assault on the individual’s human rights. And they can apply even if they’ve never been convicted of a crime.

So that’s be it for This Writer; I have written in support of many protests in the past, including those attacking Tory government crimes against liberty.

And if the people who voted this dictatorship saw reports of protesters being jailed under these proposed new powers, what do you think they’d say?

They would say the protesters – or innocent bystanders – deserved it because their protest was against the law – as though it always had been.

These people never seem to learn from their mistakes.

Imagine their surprise and shock when the Tories take their houses away from them to pay for social care (or name any other recent Tory attack on poor/working class people) and they feel the same law applied to them when they try to oppose it.

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Coalition government condemned over sanctions regime that tortures children

A poster against benefits sanctions in Salford.

Around 100,000 children were affected by benefit sanctions between the beginning of April 2013 and the end of March 2014, according to a new report.

In the same period, nearly seven million weeks’ worth of sanctions were handed out to benefit claimants.

The data, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, will feature in this evening’s episode of Channel 4’s Dispatches, entitled Britain’s Benefits Crackdown.

The report – Time to Rethink Benefit Sanctions – is published today by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Church Action on Poverty, the Church in Wales, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church. It contains new data on the severity and length of sanctions under ‘welfare reform’, and on how sanctions affect vulnerable groups such as children and those with mental health problems.

It features the stories of people like James [not his real name] who have had their benefits sanctioned: “During the first three weeks of my sanction I continued to look for work as I was required to.

“By the fourth week, however, I was exhausted, unwell and no longer had it in me. I was not eating as I had no food and was losing a lot of weight. I told the Jobcentre I was unwell through not eating, but was sanctioned for another three months for not looking for work properly,” he added.

According to The Void, Job Centres are being awarded special 'sheriff stars' for meeting sanction targets (that's right - the sanction targets that the DWP keeps insisting don't exist, even after being presented with the proof). Link: http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/sandra-gives-the-game-away-jobcentres-given-sheriffs-stars-for-hitting-benefit-sanction-targets/

According to The Void, Job Centres are being awarded special ‘sheriff stars’ for meeting sanction targets (that’s right – the sanction targets that the DWP keeps insisting don’t exist, even after being presented with the proof). Link: http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/sandra-gives-the-game-away-jobcentres-given-sheriffs-stars-for-hitting-benefit-sanction-targets/

“Those who already have the most difficult lives are those most likely to be sanctioned,” said Paul Morrison, public issues policy adviser for the Methodist Church and one of the authors of the report. “Sanctions impact disproportionately on young people, care leavers, homeless people, single parents, the mentally ill and those with long term illness. This system causes problems for the very people that most need help.

“But sanctions don’t just have a financial impact. The people we’ve spoken to have told us of the shame, demoralisation and loss of self-worth caused by this system. As Christians we believe that everyone is loved, valued and made in the image of God, and we have a responsibility to challenge any structure or system that undermines that dignity.”

The Churches are calling for a full and independent review of the regime and for urgent reform of the hardship payments system to avoid the deliberate imposition of hunger.

This is worth highlighting – these churches consider the government to be deliberately forcing hunger on people. Doesn’t that run against Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as enshrined in the UK’s Human Rights Act? Human rights campaigning organisation Liberty says this is the case, with this web page quoting a case study that includes “food and drink deprivation”.

In the meantime, they are urging the Government to suspend all sanctions against families with children and those suffering from mental health problems. Most importantly, they say, there needs to be a change of culture, from one of enforcement and punishment to one of assistance and support.

“If you commit a crime, no criminal court in the UK is allowed to make you go hungry as a punishment,” added Niall Cooper, Director of Church Action on Poverty. “But if you’re late for an appointment at the Jobcentre, they can remove all your income and leave you unable to feed yourself or your family for weeks at a time.

“Most people in this country would be shocked if they knew that far from providing a safety net, the benefit sanctions policy is currently making thousands of people destitute. This policy must be reviewed urgently.”

The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said: “The findings of this report are disturbing. It exposes a system that is harsh in the extreme, penalising the most vulnerable of claimants by the withdrawal of benefits for weeks at a time. Most worryingly, it appears from DWP guidance, quoted in the report, that deprivation and hunger are knowingly being used as a punishment for quite trivial breaches of benefit conditions. Employers would not be allowed to stop someone’s wages for a month the first time they were 10 minutes late for an appointment, but this is the kind of sanction that is being imposed on some of the most vulnerable people in our society, including those with mental and physical health problems.

Here is the DWP’s own guidance to Job Centre officials on the subject. Judge for yourself:

150121dmg-sanctions

The Archbishop continued: “We are concerned that the problem may be even worse in Wales, recognising the higher levels of poverty in this country. No Welsh data, however, is included in the report because despite submitting a Freedom of Information request to the DWP three months ago, we are still waiting for a reply. There is supposed to be a 20-day turnaround period for Freedom of Information requests. We are pursuing this.”

It is clear that the DWP is in breach of the Human Rights Act and is subjecting benefit claimants to torture as punishment for late attendance at appointments.

This report by the churches is to be welcomed. Now, what can they do to punish the government for torturing its own citizens?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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Foiled! Lords veto Coalition bid to make being ‘annoying’ an arrestable offence

140108ipna

The Conservative-led Coalition government has suffered a major setback in its plan for an oppressive law to criminalise any behaviour that may be deemed a nuisance or annoyance.

The Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill was intended to allow police the power to arrest any group in a public place who constables believe may upset someone. It was rejected by 306 votes to 178, after peers on all sides of the House condemned the proposal as one that would eliminate carol-singing and street preaching, bell-ringing and – of course – political protests.

It seems the Lords are more interested than our would-be tyrants in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Cabinet in the basic assumption of British law – that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

The politics.co.uk website, reporting the government’s defeat, said the new law would have introduced Injunctions to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance (IPNAs) to replace Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs).

It explained: “Whereas an Asbo can only be granted if a person or group is causing or threatening to cause ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ to someone else, an Ipna could be approved merely if a judge believes the behaviour in question is ‘capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person’.

“Opinion could have been swayed by a mistake from Lord Faulks, the Tory peer widely expected to shortly become a minister who was asked to give an example of the sort of behaviour which might be captured by the bill.

“He described a group of youths who repeatedly gathered at a specific location, smoking cannabis and playing loud music in a way representing ‘a day-by-day harassment of individuals’.

“That triggered consternation in the chamber as peers challenged him over the word ‘harassment’ – a higher bar than the ‘nuisance or annoyance’ threshold he was arguing in favour of.

“‘I find it difficult to accept a Conservative-led government is prepared to introduce this lower threshold in the bill,’ Tory backbencher Patrick Cormack said.

“‘We are sinking to a lower threshold and in the process many people may have their civil liberties taken away from them.'”

It is the judgement of the general public that this is precisely the intention.

Peers repeatedly quoted Lord Justice Sedley’s ruling in a 1997 high court case, when he declared: “Freedom to only speak inoffensively is not worth having.”

It is interesting to note that the government tried a well-used tactic – making a minor concession over the definition of ‘annoyance’ before the debate took place, in order to win the day. This has served the Coalition well in the past, particularly during the fight over the Health and Social Care Act, in which claims were made about GPs’ role in commissioning services, about the future role of the Health Secretary, and about the promotion of private health organisations over NHS providers.

But today the Lords were not fooled and dismissed the change in agreement with the claim of civil liberties group Liberty, which said – in words that may also be applied to the claims about the Health Act – that they were “a little bit of window dressing” and “nothing substantial has changed“.

A further concession, changing the proposal for an IPNA to be granted only if it is “just and convenient to do so” into one for it to be granted if it targets conduct which could be “reasonably expected to cause nuisance or annoyance” was torpedoed by Lord Dear, who rightly dismissed it as “vague and imprecise“.

That is a criticism that has also been levelled at that other instrument of repression, the Transparency of Lobbying Bill. Lord Blair, the former Metropolitan police commissioner, invited comparison between the two when he described the Antisocial Behaviour Bill in the same terms previously applied to the Lobbying Bill: “This is a piece of absolutely awful legislation.”

The defeat means the Bill will return to the House of Commons, where MPs will have to reconsider their approach to freedom of speech, under the scrutiny of a general public that is now much more aware of the threat to it than when the Bill was first passed by our allegedly democratic representatives.

With a general election only 16 months away, every MP must know that every decision they make could affect their chances in 2015.

We must judge them on their actions.

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