Public Assembly Offence: Does a Conviction Need to Be a Proportionate Interference With Convention Rights?
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00220183231181387 |
| Author | Neil Parpworth |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
Public Assembly Offence: Does
a Conviction Need to Be a
Proportionate Interference
With Convention Rights?
Director of Public Prosecutions v Eastburn
[2023] EWHC 1063 (Admin)
Keywords
Public assembly, serious disruption to the life of the community, breach of a condition,
conviction, proportionality
The respondent was one of a number of participants in an Extinction Rebellion protest in and around
Parliament Square on 1st September 2020. The purpose of the public assembly was to make the protes-
tors’presence and views known to MPs who were debating the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill
that day. The police had prior knowledge of the assembly. Based upon police experience of previous
Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in London, the senior officer in charge had reasonably believed
that the intended assembly may result in serious disruption to the life of the community. She therefore
imposed a condition on the assembly pursuant to s 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 which confined it
to being held on Parliament Square Gardens, the mainly grass central part of Parliament Square which
is surrounded by roads on all sides, including Parliament Street. Despite the condition, the respondent
sat down on Parliament Street as part of the protest. She was informed by an officer present at the
scene that this was in breach of the s 14 condition, and she was given an opportunity to leave the
road. Her failure to do so led to her being arrested.
At her subsequent trial, the Deputy District Judge accepted that the statutory ingredients of the offence
of knowingly failing to comply with a condition attached to a public assembly (contrary to s 14(5) of the
1986 Act) had been proved. However, he acquitted the respondent on the basis that convicting her would
constitute a disproportionate interference with her rights under Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 11
(freedom of peaceful assembly) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In so doing, he
was much influenced by the Supreme Court decision in DPP v Ziegler [2021] UKSC 23 which, he con-
cluded, applied more widely than merely protest cases involving offences contrary to s 137 of the
Highways Act 1980.
The DPP appealed by way of case stated against the respondent’s acquittal. The only issue which
the Divisional Court was asked to consider was whether, having found that the statutory ingredients of
the s 14(5) offence had been proved, the judge had been right to proceed to consider whether a con-
viction would be a proportionate interference with the respondent’s Convention rights.
Held, allowing the appeal, that previous authorities, including a Supreme Court decision, indicated
that s 14 of the 1986 Act was an example of a statutory penal provision where the ingredients of the
offence in themselves ensure the compatibility of a conviction with a defendant’s rights under Articles
10 and 11 of the ECHR. There was therefore no requirement for the prosecution to separately prove
that a conviction would be a proportionate interference with those rights. Accordingly, having found
Case Note
The Journal of Criminal Law
2023, Vol. 87(3) 231–234
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00220183231181387
journals.sagepub.com/home/clj
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