Freedom of Expression in UK Law

Where the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 is engaged, as in my view is undoubtedly the case here, it is clear from the European authorities put before us that the justification for any interference with that right must be convincingly established. Article 10(1) protects in substance and in form a right to freedom of expression which others may find insulting. Restrictions under Article 10(2) must be narrowly construed.

I have no difficulty in principle with the concept that there will be circumstances in which citizens of this country and visiting foreign nationals should be protected from intentionally and gratuitously insulting behaviour, causing them alarm or distress. There may well be a pressing social need to protect people from such behaviour.

Whether or not undertakings of confidentiality had been signed, both domestic law and Art. 10(2) would recognise the propriety of suppressing wanton or self-interested disclosure of confidential information; but both correspondingly recognise the legitimacy of disclosure, undertakings notwithstanding, if the public interest in the free flow of information and ideas will be served by it.

Paragraph 89 echoes the understanding that the conscientious motives of protestors will be taken into account when they are sentenced for their offences but that there is in essence a bargain or mutual understanding operating in such cases. A sense of proportion on the part of the offenders in avoiding excessive damage or inconvenience is matched by a relatively benign approach to sentencing.

The correct general approach to the question of whether an interference with a Convention right is justified is not in doubt.The correct general approach to the question of whether an interference with a Convention right is justified is not in doubt. First, the limitation on the right must be "prescribed by law". First, the limitation on the right must be "prescribed by law".

Lord Hewart CJ reflected the then current orthodoxy when he observed in Duncan v Jones [1936] 1 KB 218, 222, that "English law does not recognize any special right of public meeting for political or other purposes". The Human Rights Act 1998, giving domestic effect to articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention, represented what Sedley LJ in Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions (1999) 163 JP 789, 795, aptly called a "constitutional shift".

For some POA offences, the position has been clear for some time. Norwood and Hammond show that these rights and the qualifications to them, and thus the proportionality of the prohibitions or restraints on expression and assembly, form part of the statutory defence that the accused's conduct was reasonable. That is also what should have been decided in Dehal. It is the point on which the issue in Abdul turned in substance, and where the focus of the legal analysis should have been.