essay

as usual, i had the uncommon problem of having too few words by the time i reached the end of my essay. (i dunno wad ppl write so much about!) so i had to crap alot to reach the 1500 words benchmark. n i have to admit, im pretty darn proud of my 490 words of crapping.

confused? lemme explain. its coz were supposed to write a case note. which shud address the following:

• key facts of case
• central legal issues
• ECHR issues
• courts decision
• your comments

so by the time i finished courts decision, i still had about 500 words to go! other ppl "your comments" they write only like 100 words but mine... aduhhhh goreng like anything! muahaha~

im so proud of it i shall even let u guys read it. (if u disagree or tink wad i wrote is all wrong, shaddap!!! =p) i made the font tiny so dat it wont take up too much space n so dat nxt time can scroll past it faster. =p

In my opinion, I agree with the court’s decision. The appellants knew perfectly well that they required authorization to demonstrate, but they purposely flouted the law. Authorization is a lawful requirement in order to maintain the peace and stability of a country. Getting authorization will alert the authorities that a demonstration is going to be held at a venue at a certain time. This enables the authorities to put in place relevant security measures to ensure that civilians in the area are not hurt due to the demonstrations.

Besides that, the Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005 (Designated Area) Order 2005, SI No 1537, identified the designated area, which includes Parliament Square and Whitehall, where the demonstrations took place. The Parliament Square has historically been a common site of protest against Government action or inaction and it was from Brian Haw’s protests at this site that the Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005 came into force. Whitehall and its surrounding areas is the administrative centre of the United Kingdom Government. Thus, it is reasonable that proper authorization is required in order to have demonstrations in these areas.

Additionally, all the cases referred to by the defense concentrated on the importance of the right to demonstrate under Article 11 instead of the importance that the authorization procedure is compliant to Article 11. And his first four cases[1] were not cases simply concerned with the enforcement of an authorization procedure.

Although it is argued that the Serious Organized Crime and Police Act may infringe Article 11 of the ECHR, in reality, it does not. This is because the Government recognizes the right of Freedom of Assembly and Association as illustrated in Section 134 of the Act which states that “The Commissioner must give authorization for the demonstration to which the notice relates.” Thus the Commissioner cannot deny authorization for demonstrations and may only subject demonstrations to conditions. This Act merely requires demonstrators to follow the authorization procedure and does not disallow demonstrations from taking place.

In the case of all the appellants, the demonstrations were peaceful and good-humoured. All behaved in a peaceful and orderly way throughout. The demonstrations were as much as anything a demonstration against the requirement that authorization should have to be required in order to demonstrate in the Parliament Square and/or Whitehall. Perhaps this should be taken as an indication that the People feel stifled by too many laws being enacted and they feel that it strips away their rights. Afterall, the Human Rights Act 1998 was enacted to protect the rights of the citizens. But with the spate of recent terrorist attacks and flood of laws being enacted to prevent and protect against terrorism, the People may feel that they are being too tightly controlled by the Government and they are slowly losing their rights in the war against terrorism. Thus, the enacting of laws should be carefully balanced with the rights of the People.

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Plattform Artze fur Leben v Austria (1988)13 ER 204; Ezelin v France (1991) 14 EHRR 362; G v The Federal Republic of Germany (App No 13079/87); Stankov v Bulgaria (29225/95)