We are no longer allowed to protest in Britain. At all.

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It's horrendous isn't it. I cried when she told me that. I couldn't believe it. But I trust her to tell the truth and this was some years ago too, so how long has life in America been like this for women?

Surely carrying a dead creature inside a woman's body is dangerous and could lead to blood poisoning or something. Wouldn't it be rotting away inside the womb?

That is too awful to think about isn't it...

And why not keep it that way, only pressing for no additional leeway when it happens during a protest?
If these laws are insufficient, one needs to work on them.

How can that "knock back" the home secretary "into line"?

I say "Even acts of parliament" in the lightest sense too. Acts of parliament is basically what all law in the UK is. If you ever set foot in a court room you'll almost certainly be charged via an act of parliament so this whole implications that anyone charged is doomed is not the case.

What's happened is protests have gotten out of hand so the home secretary has bypassed the typical routs of making new laws and it's happened without a prior vote. This isn't a problem.

The legislation has been left intentionally vague just like self defence laws. This is so juries can decide what types of protesting is in the public interest and have the final say, not the government or home secretary. Their decision is then recorded so these vague patches are filled out with "common law". The jury can decide whatever they like. Later this common law is used to decide who gets arrested, charged and prosecuted later on.

The home secretary has made clauses that allows he/she to make quick amendments if a new type of protest tactic is causing chaos. This also has to be approved by juries on the day so again nothing to worry about. If the new amendment is clearly Draconian, then a jury will slap the home secretary down.

All in all its good law making use of common law principals. People who are genuinely causing others a lot of grief will be punished and jailed and those who are not can carry on protesting.

It's because of a clash between the right to protest (which is powerful) and the criminal acts of highway blocking, public order offences and low end vandalism (which is weak). It's the ideal battle ground for common law in a separate specific, protest orientated act of law.

Juries can tell anyone to go and do one too. Even the prime minister.

Common law is recorded and brought up in a defence later on. If someone has been found innocent of a similar offence, then the police, crown prosecution service, or judges are obliged to acquit and usually not even arrest.

It's honestly a lot worse on paper than it is in reality. It's how the law has always operated in the UK.

It's left vague so people like you and me can decide on what's disruptive of we're chosen to be in a jury in such a case and not the home secretary over government. If you're on a jury you not only have the chance to decide on what's disruptive, you also have your decision used in future cases under common law.

But why make a separate, protest-oriented law instead of strenghtening laws on road blocking, public offences and vandalism?

I still don't see how it's supposed to discipline a home secretary - legally but immorally - abusing their authority.
I.e., the home secretary making it practically illegal to protest when the government is trying to do something otherwise controversial.
How to systematically prevent such a situation?

Making a separate law is fairer. It takes into account intent better. Blocking a highway because you parked a car very badly is a lot less serious than blocking a highway out of genuine premeditated protest over a dubious cause. The former shouldn't face an excessive sentence because the sentencing guidelines where increase because of the latter persons obnoxiously intentional behaviour.

It disciplines a home secritary by making a fool of him/her and diluting their authority with the legislation. In common law countries, juries take priority over all others and their verdicts are recorded to use at a later date to erode the power parliamentary acts if they're against public discourse.

Juries verdicts are never "reset" in common law. Instead they're used even decades later to screw up poor government law making.

Who decides what cases are dubious and what are vital? The Home Secretary? You? How about simply taking intentionality into account?

I've seen plenty of politicians who made fools of themselves and stayed in power for quite a long time, without changing anything about their behaviors and decisions. Many times, in different countries.

However, if I understand it correctly, stated laws always take priority from the common law, so a stated law does de facto "reset" the common law.

Ok, who set this law into motion? The new king maybe?

You and me would. Whoever is picked for jury duty at random would be the ones to decide on what cases are leaning towards enough public interest to warrant the disruption and what isn't. Juries are guided to look only at the evidence to stop them reaching a verdict from prejudice but that's only a problem (usually) if they're reaching a guilty verdict, hence why judges poke them in that direction. Juries can also throw the law out the window when reaching a not guilty verdict. This is called "jury nullification" and plays an important part in keeping the state and courts separate and works fantastically in common law countries.

It'll get far too confusing. Legislation regarding public highways, vandalism, public nuisance, disturbing the peace, manslaughter, harassment, loss of earnings ect would need to be amended to add a protest clause. The list is literally endless. There would also be a legitimate grounds for defence where there are so many amendments that a defendant could say "well I didn't know about that weird obscure clause didn't I?"


The media might end up picking up on the unsuccessful number of prosecutions using the new public order act (assuming the jury hates it) and ridicule the home secretary and government as a whole. Anemic laws are often a point of ridicule for politicians in the media.

In common law countries juries get to decide and even repeal laws in all but name. Past jury verdicts are usually binding if a similar case shows up in the future irrespective of who made the legislation. Even Jesus himself can be overruled by a jury fairly easily if the jury really dislikes how palatable the law is. The law being an act of parliament is completely irrelevant. It means nothing because all laws are acts of parliament. The firearms act, public highway act, bankruptcy act. Any "act" just means it's law and nothing more.

Why isn't this mechanism used now in deciding how much nuissance is too much?

Isn't intentionality normally taken into account? It's not just a protest thing, after all.

Is there any solid mechanism preventing the government from controlling the media?
Very serious question, the state controlling media to some degree is a common thing in the world, we're on a constant battle against it here.

The jury and the courts verdicts as a direct result. If the jury doesn't like this law then it's dead in the water.

A lot of the time, many of these "secondary", low level, non protest offences like blocking a public highway are usually decided in a magistrates court where the expense and complexity of organising a jury isn't allowed. Hence why nobody decides on the level of nuisance. Magistrates are just a bunch of yes men who rarely make proper decisions like a jury so an endless cycle of protestors taking the piss with nothing being done begins to take effect. The general public get annoyed, protestors start getting slapped, the government are under pressure to do something from said public........it gets messy. A lot of the public are really looking forward to being the first on the jury with this new law (including me) just to send protestors to prison for a couple of years away from their families in a dingy cold cell.

Yes but the sentences are so crappy that protestors never get punished enough. Serious prison time of over a year needs to be handed over for blocking an ambulance but magistrates are wimps and might not even have those sentences at their disposal. The sentences also needs sentencing guidelines which can get confusing it there are a lot of guidelines.

In the UK probably not but it never seems to be a problem anyway. The media regularly roll government heads here.

That sounds simply vengeful.

But you say "usually" - doesn't the scale of the nuisance influence the instance adressing it?

Can't things like blocking an ambulance be taken to more serious courts? It can be someone's life at stake.

"Such things don't happen in Great Britain" is not a protective mechanism at all

Forget protesting, I want to emulate a certain incident involving Jim Morrison (you all know which one...), but mean ol' Greg Abbott won't let me.

Depends on how you see the severity of blocking ambulances or the cumulative impact of the lost income of tens of thousands of people who are prevented from getting to work. I don't know what you mean by that specific question but I like to consider myself fair in my acts of vengeance. I've done my time in prison myself and know exactly what the worst case scenario is for protestors. If I end up on a jury and end up sending an ambulance blocker on blue lights to prison for two years (which I think is very reasonable) then I know exactly what they're being sentenced too and think it's fair. It's all part of being on a jury which even myself are now allowed to be part of.

The legislation protestors are usually convicted of (with current legislation) is very low level offences. These cases are usually dealt with by a magistrate who doesn't have much in the way of sentencing at their disposal. This new law (the subject of this thread) changes that. The new law will mean that ambulance blockers can potentially get sent to prison for a fair while and rightly so. People who cause pile ups might also get sent to prison for a while, possibly years if it results in death. This is a good outcome for such people. It means that they will be removed from society for years if they intentionally acted in a dangerous way that results in serious harm or death to others.

It genuinely doesn't. Can you specifically pinpoint me to any cases in very recent times where the government were proven to gag the media in a way that interfered with the courts and their verdicts? Amber Rudd was the last person to leave upper brass government largely because of the media backlash against her.....she was a prime minister herself.....it was weeks ago.