Regulations that lowered the threshold for police intervening in protests were unlawful, the high court has ruled.
The government lowered the threshold for what is considered “serious disruption” to community life, from “significant” and “prolonged” to “more than minor”.
The regulations came after the government tried to introduce the same changes when the public order bill went through parliament, but they were rejected by the Lords at the time by 254 votes to 240.
The step to restore the provisions by statutory instrument, which faces less scrutiny than primary legislation, was criticised at the time but passed last year.
At a hearing in February, lawyers for Liberty asked the high court to quash the “unlawful” provision.
“If we are correct in our conclusion that ‘serious’ does not include ‘more than minor’, that affects how the police apply the connected concepts of ‘disruption’ and ‘cumulative’ because it is critical context to those provisions.”
The original article contains 320 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 52%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Regulations that lowered the threshold for police intervening in protests were unlawful, the high court has ruled.
The government lowered the threshold for what is considered “serious disruption” to community life, from “significant” and “prolonged” to “more than minor”.
The regulations came after the government tried to introduce the same changes when the public order bill went through parliament, but they were rejected by the Lords at the time by 254 votes to 240.
The step to restore the provisions by statutory instrument, which faces less scrutiny than primary legislation, was criticised at the time but passed last year.
At a hearing in February, lawyers for Liberty asked the high court to quash the “unlawful” provision.
“If we are correct in our conclusion that ‘serious’ does not include ‘more than minor’, that affects how the police apply the connected concepts of ‘disruption’ and ‘cumulative’ because it is critical context to those provisions.”
The original article contains 320 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 52%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!