https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/huge-victory-democracy

CAMPAIGNERS celebrated a ”huge victory for democracy” today after the Court of Appeal ruled key anti-protest legislation was forced through unlawfully.

The Home Office had appealed a High Court ruling that struck down laws brought in by the previous Tory government in 2023.

The measures expanded police powers to interfere with protests, lowering the threshold from what is considered “serious disruption” to community life, from “significant” and “prolonged” to “more than minor.”

Civil rights group Liberty challenged the law change, arguing that the measures had been voted down months earlier and that then home secretary Suella Braverman had used secondary legislation, which requires far less parliamentary scrutiny, to implement them.Ms Braverman used so-called “Henry VIII powers” to introduce the laws by clarifying the definition of “serious disruption” under the Public Order Act 1986.

Liberty argued that the broad redefinition of “serious disruption” effectively granted the police “almost unlimited powers to impose conditions on protests.”

The High Court ruled it unlawful last May, but the previous government initiated an appeal, which was continued by Labour after it came to power.

Upholding the ruling today, Lord Justice Underhill, Lord Justice Dingemans and Lord Justice Edis said that ”the term ’serious’ inherently connotes a high threshold … [and] cannot reasonably encompass anything that is merely ‘more than minor’.”

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