Steven Cammiss does not rule out that British courts will be very busy in the coming years with trials against environmental activists. Of course, sentences of four to five years in prison, such as those handed down to five members of Just Stop Oil a week and a half ago, are still unusual. But according to him, there has been a hardening in the attitude of British police, prosecutors and judges towards peaceful protesters for years.
Cammiss is a professor of law at the University of Birmingham. “Judges are independent in determining their sentences, but they often respond to the broader political climate in the country,” she explains. In addition, the recently defeated Conservative government introduced legislation in recent years that encourages prosecutors to use the relatively serious charge of causing a public nuisance against peaceful protesters. And while there was once case law ensuring that British judges were at least somewhat reluctant to impose prison sentences on such protesters, even that is no longer taboo.
‘A black day for peaceful environmental protest’
The Just Stop Oil activists who were sentenced a week and a half ago were not the first British protesters to be jailed recently. But their case received special attention because the length of their prison sentences was unprecedented. Moreover, they had not even physically participated in the four-day blockade of the M25 motorway around London in 2022. They were convicted solely of organising it: for conspiracy to create public nuisance, based on their participation in a Zoom meeting.
Michel Forst, the UN rapporteur, had nothing good to say about it. He called it “a dark day for peaceful environmental protest” and “for all those involved in the exercise of their fundamental freedoms” in the UK. An army of human rights organisations supported him.
However, Graeme Hayes, a political sociologist at Aston University, does not expect the harsh sentences to stop protests in the UK. He believes environmental organisations will use public anger over the severity of the penalties to recruit more members. Shortly after the verdict, a survey by the British organisation Social Change Lab showed that 61 per cent of British respondents thought four to five years in prison was too harsh a sentence.
Seeking more media attention
Hayes suspects that British environmental organisations will reconsider their protest strategies. Because getting arrested from time to time is part of that, but five years in prison is a long time. However, such a strategy correction is nothing new, he explains.
For example, the well-known incident in which Just Stop Oil activists threw soup on a glass-protected painting by Vincent van Gogh at the National Gallery in London two years ago was also a response to the fact that protests at oil refineries were beginning to attract excessive penalties. Activists began to look for an alternative that would generate more media attention but a lesser punishment.
According to Cammiss, only government intervention can guarantee that there will be no lawsuits against climate activists in the coming years. But the chance of such intervention happening is small, even though the new left-wing Labour government has a greater ideological affinity with environmental activism.
Review by the European Court of Human Rights
Hayes predicts the rhetoric will be softer than under the previous right-wing government, but sees little change in practice. Cammiss agrees. Although he cautions that it is too early to say anything with certainty. “Labour may repeal the more excessive anti-protest legislation of the previous government. But when it was still in opposition, it did not seem to be against the measures.”
Not surprisingly, Labour leader Keir Starmer, who was once a human rights lawyer and later also head of the Public Prosecution Service, stressed after the conviction of the Just Stop Oil activists that judges must decide their sentences independently. “It is not for politicians to interfere,” he said.
Cammiss therefore believes that it would be best if a lawyer for the protesters went to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to have the strict British rulings against the demonstrations reviewed. The ECHR traditionally attaches great importance to freedom of expression and association, something that climate protesters could rely on. And the new Labour government, unlike its Conservative predecessor, wants to maintain good ties with the ECHR. So it is hoped that a ruling from that court will be respected.
According to Cammiss, this would have more impact than the firm but ineffective condemnation by UN rapporteur Forst. Although it is of course possible, the lawyer clarifies, that the ECHR could also rule that the protesters simply went too far in their protest actions and that their punishment was therefore not unjust.
British condemned for throwing soup at Van Gogh
Two Just Stop Oil activists were found guilty of malicious destruction by a London court jury on Thursday for throwing soup at the painting. The sunflowers (1888) by Vincent van Gogh. It was made in 2022 at the National Gallery museum in the British capital.
The painting, valued at more than 85 million euros, was behind glass and therefore undamaged. But prosecutors said during the trial that the painting’s old frame was damaged. The two Britons will be sentenced on Sept. 27. (AP)
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