After every miscarriage of justice there is the question of how the wrong was possibly allowed to happen.
And often the miscarriage comes down to the evidence before the court.
In essence: the court is presented with evidence that [x] is the case, and unless that evidence can be undermined then the court will be satisfied that there is guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
The evidence can come from police officers. or from an ’eminent’ expert witness, or (as with the Horizon scandal) an IT system.
In a criminal case a court is presented with substantive (-looking) evidence on one side of the scale and nothing – other than perhaps bare denials – on the other side.
And so the scales tip to one side.
To dislodge such (on the face of it) compelling evidence is a difficult task.
To an extent the situation is alleviated by the obligation of the prosecution to disclose relevant evidence, and not just the evidence on which they are relying on.
To an extent the situation is also alleviated by a prosecutor assessing the soundness of the evidence before bringing any prosecution.
To an extent proper preparation for trial from everyone involved – judge, prosecution, defence – should be a safeguard.
And the main safeguard, of course, is (or should be) the forensic process itself.
Evidence – especially evidence which comes from supposedly authoritative sources – should be relentlessly tested for its cogency.
There should not be mere nodding-along in deference – whether to a police officer, a ‘respected paediatrician’ or a ‘robust’ computer system.
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But.
Disclosure exercises are sometimes not easy – or cheap.
A properly resourced prosecution authority is not cheap.
Proper case preparation is not cheap.
And skilled in-court lawyering and cross-examination is not easy – or cheap.
For justice to be served, however, requires all of this is done well – which requires funding and other resources.
Else the court will be prone to placing the wrong weight on evidence before it.
Or as techies put it: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
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(The civil cases were when those affected sued the Post Office – the criminal appeals were challenges to the criminal conviction in prosecutions brought by the Post Office – the distinction explains why there have been two channels of litigation in this scandal.)
The first – favourable – impression is that the judge who dealt with the civil cases did a magnificent job of judging, both in terms of case management and of the substance of the case.
It is an outstanding and forensic piece of work, by a (rare) judge at ease with both technology and the law.
Paragraph 929 is a judicial classic.
The judge is a credit to the judiciary.
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But.
That civil judgment is from late 2019.
The criminal convictions were quashed yesterday.
And the wrongful convictions date back to 2003.
This means there has been a wait of, in some case, nearly twenty years for justice.
However commendable the 2019 civil judgment and the 2021 criminal appeal judgment, there is little or no room for legal self-congratulation at these delays.
Part of the delay can be explained, of course, by the Post Office seeking to contest the cases as long as possible, defending their ‘robust’ system.
Another part of the delay can be explained by the internal Post Office decisions to, in effect, cover up or ignore what happened.
But whatever fingers can be pointed elsewhere, this is a stark example of the failure of the criminal justice system – and it is a systemic failure given how many were falsely convicted.
And so a close look is needed at what, if anything, could be done to stop such injustices again – especially (as is one of my bugbears) the right and power of certain self-interested entities to bring private prosecutions.
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One or two people have complained about the the legal fees in this case.
It would appear that the lawyers for those unfairly accused and convicted had an immense legal job in taking taking on and defeating a well-resourced Post Office insisting that their system was ‘robust’.
To dismantle such a case so that one could even have the material and evidence before the court that would enable Mr Justice Fraser to be able to make his judgment was an extraordinary task.
That the lawyers who did this successfully were remunerated should not be controversial.
And had the Post Office not contested the cases – and, as the court averred, insisted that the world was flat – then the costs would have been substantially less.
Sometimes lawyers can be fairly blamed for costs – but not, it would seem, in this case.
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There should also be a shout out to the investigative journalist Nick Wallis, who has both covered and uncovered a good deal of the scandal – and you can support his work and buy his book here.
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This is an appeal judgment that will (or should) sound through the generations, as a detailed description of how the criminal justice system can go wrong.
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But.
It would be an error to dismiss it as just a grand example of ‘the computer says no’.
Computers, like any automatic processes, will be prone to faults.
The problem was not so much the Horizon software but a sequence of horrible, deliberate decisions made by human beings – about whether to bring prosecutions, to contest civil cases, and to avoid the disclosure of relevant documents.
Every single manager involved in these prosecutions and in opposing appeals are far more culpable than any of the poor defendants.
Yet, unlike the defendants, the Post Office managers are not (generally) named in this judgment: they have their gongs and their pensions and their self-serving supposed exculpations of ‘lessons learned’.
So damning is this judgment that, no doubt, every person reading it will have a view on which of their legal and political opinions will be affirmed by the judgment.
For this blog, the damning Post Office judgment affirms that private prosecutions are generally a bad thing – whether they are brought by the Post Office or anyone else.
Some organisations – and individuals – enjoy the swagger and the bluster of being able to bring (and threaten) cases aimed at criminalising and penalising others.
But as the noted jurist Benjamin Parker averred: with great power comes great responsibility.
And the power to criminalise and penalise others is one of greatest powers and responsibilities of all.
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Lawyers often boast of being ‘fearless’.
Prosecutions should be – genuinely – fearless: but being fearless including being free of the fear of not proceeding with the prosecution because of the reason of embarrassment.
For, as the damning Post Office judgment shows, it was the fear of embarrassment that meant that things were not said and disclosed that should have been said and disclosed.
The damning Post Office judgment also shows what will happen when the power and the urge to prosecute is free from any checks and balances.
It shows what will happen when defendants do not get the materials and the advice that they need so as to be properly defended.
Yes: the appeal points to the dangers of automation and computerisation – but the appeal points harder at the dangers where managers and other decision-makers hide behind automation and computerisation.
And the delay in this appeal judgment – ten or so years after the miscarriages of justice – also shows the inefficiency of a criminal justice system that can often be so quick to impose criminal liability in putting right things when they go wrong.
Nobody – other than the defendants – come out of this judgment well.
Not least the criminal justice system itself.
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Yesterday a former police officer was convicted of the murder of George Floyd.
The evidence was overwhelming and, to most people who followed the televised trial, compelling.
Indeed, some would aver (in my view, correctly) that the evidence was compelling even before the trial.
But due process is due process, and even those charged with the most vile of crimes are entitled to due process.
And the former police officer received due process, and the former police officer was duly convicted – unanimously.
Yet.
Until the very last moment the verdict was uncertain.
Anyone watching the verdict being handed down was braced for an acquittal.
Regardless of the starkness of the evidence – and of the weakness of the defence case, even taking it at its highest – it seemed extraordinary that a white former police officer would actually get convicted of the murder of a black person.
And even if the evidence was as twice as compelling, and the defence case twice as weak, one would still realistically expect an acquittal.
For that seems to be the nature of the criminal justice system.
There is here a gap between knowledge and expectation – and this gap is systemic racism.
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By ‘systemic’ is meant that the racism is a feature of the system.
It would not matter which white police officer was accused, and which black person was the victim of a wrong, the operation of the system will tend towards certain outcomes.
Black people will tend to be the victims of police violence and there will never be any sanction against those who inflict the violence.
Any fatality will tend to be the subject of misdirection and misinformation by the police to the media.
Any victim will tend to be disparaged, if not demonised.
Any police violence will tend not to be filmed or similarly documented.
Any accused police officer will tend to be given the benefit of the doubt – and if there is no room for doubt, they will be given the benefit of some excuse.
Any other officers will tend to stay quiet.
Remember: none of Chauvin’s colleagues turned him in. He murdered a man in broad daylight and we are here today because a brave Black girl named Darnella Frazier kept taping despite threats from the cops on the scene.
And any prosecution brought will tend to lead to an acquittal.
The reason for each of these swerves away from justice will be different from case to case.
But the overall bias of the system will mean that the gravity pull will be against any conviction.
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The solution to this problem is not to dilute due process – but to be open and frank about the factors which will distort the process as a whole.
Indeed, everyone should have the benefit of the strict approach to due process that is accorded to police officers and other privileged defendants.
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It is all very good to say there are systemic problems, some will protest, but what about solutions?
Well.
There is plenty of sensible and constructive thinking out there about other faults in the system – for example, see these two threads which should be read carefully.
For those who are interested in research-based solutions to stop police violence, here’s what you need to know – based on the facts and data. A thread. (1/x)
As the Derek Chauvin trial comes to a close, it is important to recognize that accountability for the killing of George Floyd, while necessary, will not have a broad effect on American policing. The circumstances that led to this tragedy will be repeated. 🧵 below
A systemic problem needs a systemic approach to the solution.
Picking on any individual element of the system will not be sufficient, as long as other elements still tend towards injustice.
Accepting the importance of a systemic approach – and of the existence of system (or institutional) racism – will be for many an intellectual and emotional pain barrier.
Racism in legal systems is not just about the wrongness of individual acts – but a realisation of the impacts of swarms of wrongful acts which means that – unless there are exceptional circumstances – white police officers will get away with whatever violence they can against black people.
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Anyone who knows and cares about the criminal justice system in England and Wales knows that the system is collapsing – and that the word ‘system’ is itself hardly still applicable.
On the face of it, however, this presents a paradox.
For we have a government – with loud and shouty political and media supporters – committed to ‘Law and Order!’.
You would think that a government with such a stated priority would ensure that the substance of policy would have some correspondence to the rhetoric of its politics.
You would be wrong.
For, as this blog has averred elsewhere, there is a distinction – a dislocation – between the politics and the actuality of the criminal justice system.
It is easy for a politician to get claps and cheers with demands for ‘tougher penalties’ and ‘crackdowns on crime’!
Time-poor political reporters will type easily about ‘new laws’ and ‘longer sentences’ and so on.
And voters will nod-along, as they are fooled into thinking some useful thing is being done.
But there is no point having tougher and tougher penalties, and longer and longer sentences, and more and more laws, if the criminal justice system itself is not working.
As the former attorney general Dominic Grieve sets out in this article, the reality is that the system is halting and crashing.
Part of the problem is lack of cash – and for the the reasons Grieve submits.
But another part of the problem is a lack of policy seriousness – an assumption that it ultimately does matter that the criminal justice system comprises a motley of inadequate court buildings, demoralised staff, badly let contracts, ancient IT systems, health and safety horrors, a general lack of safety for everyone involved, and a general drift of the system towards discharging greater re-offending, and not less.
If you invited a demon to devise the worst possible state of affairs in the criminal justice system the current situation is pretty much what you would get.
But: ‘new laws’ and ‘longer sentences’ and ‘tougher penalties’ and ‘crackdowns on crime’!
Slogans that are like loose gear sticks and brakes, not attached to any other part of the vehicle.
Perhaps the only consolation is that such an absolute system failure tells against England and Wales becoming, in practice, an authoritarian state.
But it is not only authoritarian states that need a functioning criminal justice system – modern liberal democracies need working criminal justice systems too.
And so we have a system that should satisfy nobody – other than of course, dishonest purveyors of easy criminal justice solutions: fraudsters of modern politics.
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Ten years ago this month the singer David Emmanuel – known as Smiley Culture – died under arrest during a police raid.
The cause of death was a knife wound – which the police said was self-inflcited.
Ten years ago I blogged about this extraordinary death – and so this post is a follow-on so as to see what happened (and did not happen) next.
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Smiley Culture was part of the soundtrack of those of us brought up in the 1980s.
Have a click and listen and watch.
The sneering, aggressive vocal characterisation of the officer – ‘Shut your bloody mouth. We ask. You answer’ – felt spot on for those in communities which dealt with the police.
Police Officer especially caught a certain mood about the police’s attitude.
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Here is the singer posing outside a south London police station on the cover of the single:
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The news of the circumstances of the death of Smiley Culture seemed – literally – incredible.
That someone could stab themselves fatally in the chest in the presence of police officers seemed surreal – like something akin to those lines in the Blackadder episode Dish and Dishonesty.
But this – horrifically – was real, not a fiction.
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The name of Smiley Culture is now recalled as one of a long list of name of black people who have died in police custody or in similar situations.
So what happened with his case?
Putting events together now, the main consequence of the death was a coroner’s inquest in June-July 2013.
After a two-week hearing, the jury returned a majority verdict that the cause of death was indeed suicide.
(A majority verdict, of course, means that the jury could not come to an unanimous verdict, which in turn means that at least one juror had doubt that it was a suicide.)
According to a BBC report, the inquest heard medical evidence that the fatal wound could have been self-inflicted, if the right spot was chosen:
‘Dr Nathaniel Cary, who carried out a second post-mortem examination on Mr Emmanuel’s body, said told the inquest it was possible the fatal stab wound was, as described, a self-inflicted injury.
‘But he said that on pathological grounds alone there was nothing to determine that this was the case, although it was fair to say the site chosen may be used in self-infliction.’
The majority of the jurors accepted this as the explanation.
As counter-intuitive as this verdict may seem, it must be remembered that those jurors sat through two weeks of evidence – which was cross-examined on behalf of the deceased’s family.
But another person who sat through that hearing – the daughter of Smiley Culture – was not satisfied.
‘After listening to over two weeks of evidence and having had the opportunity to test the accounts of the officers, I feel no closer to the truth than I did before.
‘I have approached this inquest with an open mind hoping to hear for myself what happened on the day of my dad’s death.
‘Despite the jury’s verdict, the inconsistencies in the evidence have only served to raise serious concerns on my part about what really happened on the morning of March 15 2011.’
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That a person in a room drinking tea with a police officer should suddenly get up, produce a large kitchen knife and plunge it in his own chest so as to kill themselves is, even accepting the jury’s verdict, an extreme fact situation.
Even if it were suicide, there are questions to be asked about how it happened, and answers to be given in the public interest.
‘Despite the suicide verdict, the jury did find that the way in which Mr Emmanuel was supervised following his arrest materially contributed to his death. In particular, the fact that a single officer was left to supervise Mr Emmanuel while also completing paperwork was felt to be inappropriate.
‘The inquest has also highlighted serious failings in the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s investigation, including a failure to attend the scene until some four hours after the event, a failure to secure all relevant evidence, and a failure to critically analyse opinions expressed by the expert witnesses.
‘Following the verdict, the Coroner, Mr Richard Travers, said that he would write to the Metropolitan Police Service, highlighting failures that contributed towards the death, making recommendations for changes aimed at preventing similar tragedies in future.’
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The (then) Independent Police Complaints Commission issued the following press release after the inquest verdict (emphasis added):
‘Following today’s conclusion of the inquest into the death of David Emmanuel, also known as Smiley Culture, IPCC Commissioner Mike Franklin said:
‘David Emmanuel’s death caused huge shock, anger and disbelief in the community and I am aware that many people, most importantly Mr Emmanuel’s family, have waited over two years for the evidence to be heard at an inquest.
‘The ongoing dynamic assessments made by officers on the 15 March 2011 were left wanting. Four experienced officers felt it appropriate to detain a suspect in the kitchen, potentially the most dangerous room in the house and afforded him a level of freedom not normally associated with an operation of this kind.
‘The IPCC has made a series of recommendations to the Metropolitan Police following this investigation presenting them with areas that should be reviewed and changed in light of the findings. These include recommendations on dynamic risk assessments, the sharing of information and use of officer personal safety equipment.
‘The IPCC made two national recommendations following this investigation. The first is that officers should always detain people in the safest part of the house. Therefore kitchens must generally be avoided at all times. The second national recommendation focused on officer safety equipment and that all officers and staff attending search operations should carry with them the appropriate personal safety equipment.
‘While the IPCC highlighted these areas of learning for the MPS, the officers’ actions did not meet the threshold for misconduct under the Police (conduct) Regulations 2008 and no disciplinary action has been recommended.
‘I hope that this inquest has provided Mr Emmanuel’s family with some of the answers they and the community have so patiently waited for. This has been a long process for all the parties involved and I would like to thank them for their patience.
‘Notes to editors
‘Mr Emmanuel died on 15 March 2011 of a single stab wound through the heart at his home on Hillbury Road in Warlingham, Surrey. Four officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) were at the house at the time, carrying out a search of the property.
‘After careful consideration and in consultation with lawyers from both the IPCC and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Commissioner Mike Franklin, took the decision not to formally refer the case to the CPS as the investigation found no evidence that a criminal offence may have been committed.
‘Consideration was also given as to whether the actions of individual officers met the threshold for misconduct under the Police (conduct) Regulations 2008. The investigation found there were no individual failings which, for the purposes of the Regulations, amounted to misconduct.’
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So the conduct of the police was ‘found wanting’, somebody died under arrest, but this was an opportunity for ‘learning’ rather than any formal proceedings.
The coroner, in turn, also made recommendations.
Thanks to a tweeter, we have what appears to have a formal record of the recommendations:
Presumably this is report 208 on p39 at https://t.co/2zixUC50Q4 ? If the inquest had been 4 weeks later we could read the letter and responses.
No doubt in each of those situations there are special facts – but it is marked that the police rarely face any proceedings, let alone criminal charges for any of these deaths.
And it may well be that the close scrutiny of each case could dispel any suspicion that something wrong happened every time.
But the accumulation of deaths as set against the absence of successful prosecutions seems to be a mismatch.
Given the facts of the death of Smiley Culture, as determined by a majority of a jury, it may contested that his death is not as glaring example of this apparent trend of injustices as many others.
But like one or two of the others that have died while in the custody (or ‘care’) of the police, he happened to be more famous than the rest, and so his is one of the names that will be cited.
And even the IPCC found the conduct of the police at the time of his death to be ‘wanting’ – with both the IPCC and the coroner separately making recommendations about how such searches are conducted in future.
So even if one accepts the coroner’s inquest – and again the jury heard the relevant evidence cross-examined and a majority of those jurors were convinced it was suicide – the death followed carelessness by the police.
I am still seeking to find out if those recommendations were formally accepted by the police and the home office – though I have been told by police sources that the training for such searches now includes the need for risk assessments that would cover what happened in the death of Smiley Culture.
I will post here again on this subject when I have further information about what happened with the recommendations of the coroner and the IPCC.
It is important to follow these things through, even ten years later – especially as black people continue to die in police custody, and there are never any formal proceedings.
**
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And that, in turn, is the account of the Gloucestershire Police Federation as it is directly linked to at their website (top right).
So, yes, it is a real tweet.
A real tweet by a real chair of a real police federation.
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Having established the tweet’s authenticity, let us now look at its content.
The tweet states that the police are not public servants.
More exactly that ‘technically’ the police are not public servants.
As there is no ‘technical’ definition of the term ‘public servant’ this is a nonsense.
That a police constable is a servant of the crown – as are many civil servants – does not mean that they are also not public servants.
Crown servants – and others employed by the state in whatever legal form – are public servants.
Now look at the context of the tweet – it is intended as a correction in reply to a fair comment that the police should serve the public, not the government.
The reply denies that this is the case.
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But not only does this tweet deny that the police are public servants – it also frames the concept of ‘policing by consent’ as a ‘general principle’ but not a ‘duty’.
‘To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.’
Indeed, each of the principles is set out as an express ‘instruction’ to constables: ‘to recognise’, ‘to maintain’, ‘to use’ and so on.
As such each of the principles is also a duty – and this is because – ahem, technically – a duty can also be a principle, and vice versa.
Especially when they are expressly framed as such, as they are in that formal definition of ‘policing by consent’.
But for our tweeter, these express instructions can be defined out of from having any actual application because they are only ‘principles’.
This, like the tweeter’s other distinction, is itself worrying and telling.
Policing by consent is not an optional nice-to-have in modern society – it is foundational.
That it can be expressly stated to not be a duty – notwithstanding the actual words of the instructions – is a disturbing insight.
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Perhaps the tweet was a just a slip, not to be taken seriously.
(Though, remember the police themselves are often not so forgiving of the slips of others.)
Perhaps there will be a clarification, or something.
Or perhaps the tweets provided an indication – an insight – into a mindset of certain police officers.
That not being public servants and that not policing by consent are both a quick distinction away from having practical application in the discharge of their important role in our society.
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And for seventy years the offence was hardly noticed, though it was reenacted from time to time as telecommunications legislation was, ahem, modernised and simplified.
Then in 2003 it was reenacted yet again, but in terms that (without any proper consideration) ended up covering the entire internet:
But it was still not really noticed.
Until one day some bright spark at the crown prosecution service realised the provision’s broad terms were a prosecutorial gift in the age of social media.
In allowing the appeal against conviction, the lord chief justice said:
In other words: the intention of the 2003 reenactment had not been to widen the scope of the offence in respect of fundamental freedoms.
(Declaration of interest: I was the appeal solicitor before the high court in that case.)
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Coming back to clause 59, it may well be that the intended effect of clause 59 is to merely restate the existing law.
Some are convinced by this view:
This is particularly so when the Bill is explicitly restating the common law. I would expect the Courts to apply the old caselaw to the new, statutory offence.
— Yet Another Tweeting Barrister (@TweetingYet) March 20, 2021
But.
What we will have, once enacted, will be an offence – that is, an arrestable and chargeable offence – which, on the face of it is in extraordinary broad terms, using such everyday language as ‘annoyance’.
It may be that the higher courts will, as any appeals come in, apply the technical meaning in property law of ‘annoyance’.
The law in practice is not that (only) of the judgments of the high court and above: it is what police officers and crown prosecution service case workers believe the law to be and see the law as it is set out.
It is also can be what zealous complainants to the police say it to be.
And none of these people will – understandable and perhaps rightly – be well versed in the case law of ‘annoyance’ in respect of the old law of public nuisance.
They will just see an arresting and charging power – and a power to set conditions.
So it should not be left to the courts ‘to apply the old caselaw’.
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Criminal offences – and their limits – need to be clear and precise to everyone involved: citizen, complainant, arresting officer, crown prosecution service case worker, busy junior legal aid solicitor giving advice on plea – as well as to erudite barristers and even more erudite judges.
And so: even taking the point about this being a mere modernisation and simplification at its highest, clause 59 currently contains worryingly wide drafting.
Most people reading clause 59 by itself will believe there is a criminal offence – with a sentence of up to ten years – for causing mere annoyance.
Even if that it not the government’s intention, that is how the current provision can be read.
And because of this, people may suffer the life-changing events of being arrested and being charged – and may even plead guilty.
Unless, of course, that is the government’s real intention.
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Earlier this week the house of commons passed the government’s illiberal Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Bill with a ninety-six majority.
So given this high majority the obvious question is what would actually stop or hinder a populist and authoritarian government from seeking to pass primary legislation that would remove or undermine basic legal protections and rights?
This is not a trivial or academic question.
The usual ‘gatekeepers’ that would prevent a government from not even proposing such things are no longer in place.
For example, the offices of lord chancellor and attorney-general are occupied by politicians who happen to be lawyers but have no credentials in protecting either the rule of law or fundamental freedoms.
And we have a government heady with ‘will of the people’ rhetoric that has developed a taste for attacking or disregarding what checks and balances the constitution of the United Kingdom has to offer.
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In constitutional theory, the next check – once legislation is proposed – is the house of commons.
But with such a large majority – and the tendency for even supposedly ‘libertarian’ government backbenchers to vote in accordance with the whip and accept limp front-bench assurances – there is no realistic way that the house of commons is any check or balance on this government.
And if the opposition do oppose – which cannot be assumed, given the official opposition’s habit of not opposing things for tactical and strategic reasons – then such opposition can and will be weaponised by hyper-partisan ministers and their media supporters.
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Next there is the house of lords, where (fortunately) the government does not have an in-built majority.
And the house of lords can vote things down and pass amendments.
But.
When constitutional push comes to political shove, the house of lords will usually backdown once the house of commons has reaffirmed its support for a measure.
This is in part that the the house of lords has a, well, constitutional disability in respect of confronting the democratic house.
There will only be a few occasions where the house of lords will use its power to delay legislation under the parliament acts.
And that power is that: to delay.
A determined government, with the support of the house of commons, will get its legislative way in the end.
There are a very few exceptions to this: such as a bill containing any provision to extend the maximum duration of a parliament beyond five years.
But otherwise: there is nothing that can ultimately stop an illiberal bill eventually becoming an act of parliament.
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And then we come to the courts.
Here we have another problem.
Because of the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy there is nothing that the courts would be able to do – as long as the government has ensured that the statutory drafting is precise and tight.
The human rights act, for example, provides no legal basis for an act of parliament to be disapplied.
The judgments of the European court of human rights are not binding.
The European communities act, which did enable a court to disapply an act of parliament on certain grounds, is no longer part of domestic law.
‘Common law rights’ capable of frustrating an act of parliament exist only in undergraduate law student essays.
Even with the powers the courts do have, the government is seeking to limit access to judicial review by all possible means: in substantive law, by procedural restrictions, and by denying legal aid.
Before the general election of December 2019 we had the unpleasant predicament of a government that was populist and authoritarian – but at least it did not have a parliamentary majority.
Now, by reason of that general election and its result, we have a government with the same illiberal instincts but with all the sheer legal force of parliamentary supremacy at their disposal.
That the opposition parties facilitated an early general election in December 2019 was a moment of political madness.
And now – until at least December 2024 – we have a government that is able with ease to get the house of commons to pass the most illiberal legislation – and there is ultimately nothing that either the house of lords or the courts can do – as long as the legislation is precise and tight.
Brace, brace.
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There is currently a bill before parliament that will, among other things, create a new statutory offence of ‘public nuisance’.
This new offence – as currently set out in the bill – is itself causing annoyance and distress.
Why is it being proposed?
And what should parliament do about it?
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Like a lamp in Aladdin – it is a new offence for an old one.
If the new offence is enacted then the current ‘common law’ (that is, non-statutory) offence of public nuisance will be abolished.
The current offence is ill-defined and rarely used – and it has been the subject of 2015 reform proposals from the Law Commission – see here.
(Of course, the fact that the Law Commission proposed reform in 2015 is not the reason why the home office have chosen to propose changes in 2021.)
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On the face of it, reform and simplification are good things.
Who could possibly oppose something as laudable as reform and simplification?
And the Law Commission does have a point – the current law is somewhat vague and archaic.
The current law is usually stated as:
‘A person is guilty of a public nuisance (also known as common nuisance), who (a) does an act not warranted by law, or (b) omits to discharge a legal duty, if the effect of the act or omission is to endanger the life, health, property or comfort of the public, or to obstruct the public in the exercise or enjoyment of rights common to all Her Majesty’s subjects.’
The bill before parliament proposes that old offence to be replaced by this:
As you will see there are elements of the current offence copied over to the new offence – and that although this is an exercise in ‘simplification’ it also happens to be rather longer.
Words like ‘annoyance’ are added.
But the new offence has not plucked the word ‘annoyance’ out of the air: annoyance can be a component of the current offence, and it has featured in case law.
The word ‘annoy’ (and its variants) is mentioned thirty-seven times in the Law Commission report.
The Law Commission summarises their view as (at paragraph 3.12):
‘One question is the nature of the right or interest which public nuisance seeks to protect. In our view, its proper use is to protect the rights of members of the public to enjoy public spaces and use public rights (such as rights of way) without danger, interference or annoyance.’
Whatever ills can be blamed on the home secretary and the home office, the content of this proposed provision is not entirely of their creation.
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But.
Each and every piece of legislation needs to be scrutinised on its own terms – and neither parliamentarians nor the public should just nod-along because the magic words ‘reform’ and ‘simplification’ are invoked.
Never trust the home office.
And if one looks through clause 59 carefully and trace through how it works, it is potentially a chilling and illiberal provision.
For example (with emphasis added):
‘A person commits an offence if— (a) the person— (i) does an act […] [which](b) the person’s act or omission […] (ii) obstructs the public or a section of the public in the exercise or enjoyment of a right that may be exercised or enjoyed by the public at large, and (c) the person […] is reckless as to whether it will have such a consequence. […] (2) For the purposes of subsection (1) an act or omission causes serious harm to a person if, as a result, the person […] (c) suffers serious distress, serious annoyance, serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity,or (d) is put at risk of suffering anything mentioned […].
The offence is thereby made out not if a person is caused ‘serious annoyance’ but only if there is a ‘risk’ of them suffering it.
And there does not need need to be any directed intention – mere recklessness will suffice.
The maximum sentence for simply putting someone ‘at risk of suffering’ serious annoyance is imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.
Of course, maximum sentences are maximum sentences, and in practice the penalties will be lower.
Yet, the creation of such an offence in these terms will have a knock-on effects on the powers of police to arrest and to set conditions.
And it is in the day-to-day exercises of such powers by the police that the real chill of any offence is most keenly felt – and not the ultimate sentencing power of a court.
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This provision and other provisions in the bill before parliament have the potential to greatly restrict the rights of individuals to protest – or even go about their everyday activities.
As such, such provisions should receive the anxious scrutiny of parliamentarians.
Despite the Law Commission origins of the proposed reform – there may be plenty here that the home office have added – and for various illiberal reasons.
Members of parliament are not there to nod-along – and this particular proposal should not just be nodded-through.
***
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If you value this free-to-read post, and the independent legal and policy commentary this blog provides for both you and others – please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.
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