The UK Excessive Courtroom just lately dismissed the case in opposition to environmental activist Trudi Warner, who was referred for contempt of court docket in March 2023. Civil liberties campaigners hailed the choice as a “enormous win for democracy”, however is it?
Warner had stood outdoors the Outdated Bailey, England’s most necessary felony court docket in central London, with an indication that learn “Jurors have an absolute proper to acquit in accordance with their conscience”. She did so firstly of a trial of local weather activists who had been charged with public nuisance for obstructing visitors. Warner’s signal paraphrased the textual content on a plaque on show on the Outdated Bailey itself.
Emily Pennink/PA Photos/Alamy Inventory Photograph
Generally known as jury fairness, the authorized precept evoked by this assertion dates again to 1670 and is usually cited, not least by main authorized figures and within the choices of the upper courts, as a cornerstone of English democracy: juries can resolve in accordance with their conscience, and can’t be bullied into discovering because the legislation dictates.
Certainly, many authorized commentators noticed the case in opposition to Warner as perverse. Since the specter of contempt proceedings was introduced by the solicitor basic (a authorities minister answerable for authorized recommendation), Warner’s protest has been repeated outdoors courtrooms all through the nation on the instigation of marketing campaign group Defend our Juries.
Why have juries turned so necessary for protesters within the UK – and are they any safer of their proper to protest because of the Excessive Courtroom’s determination?
Jury fairness and protest trials
Amongst latest protest prosecutions, Warner’s case is exclusive: as she noticed it, her intention was to coach jurors on their rights.
For many non-violent disruptive protests being handled in English courts, defendants (like Warner) sometimes settle for they did what they’re alleged to have performed, however argue they’d a lawful foundation for doing so. That is the case in lots of trials, from Extinction Rise up to Palestine Motion.
Over the past 5 years, this foundation has been whittled away via authorities referrals to the Courtroom of Enchantment and choices by that court docket which have eliminated the safety of lawful excuse and necessity defences in protest circumstances.
In the meantime, new public order laws has turned minor acts of disruption (equivalent to occupying the freeway) into severe acts of criminality punishable by jail sentences. The Courtroom of Enchantment endorsed lengthy sentences for 2 non-violent activists who closed the Queen Elizabeth II bridge on the M25 in October 2022. Such is the parlous state of the court docket system following a decade of austerity that judges are underneath stress to handle trials rapidly.
Gareth Fuller/PA Photos/Alamy Inventory Photograph
Warner’s case brings every of those dynamics into sharp focus. Activists now often discover themselves in court docket unable to current a defence in legislation for his or her actions, however stay dedicated to justifying them, as a result of being publicly accountable is necessary to them. The one manner they will keep away from probably extreme punishments is by persuading juries to not convict them via the sincerity of their arguments and the general public utility of their actions.
As such, jury fairness is now typically their solely recourse. However judges, in search of to handle trials, often impose limits on what defendants can say in court docket, and for the way lengthy they will say it, significantly once they haven’t any defence in legislation. In truth, Warner’s motion stemmed from the extensively publicised rulings of Decide Silas Reid in a number of Insulate Britain trials, who forbid defendants from addressing the jury on the local weather emergency, and imprisoned two defendants for contempt for defying his order.
Restoring religion in British justice?
Does the Excessive Courtroom’s denial of permission to prosecute Warner point out that the courts now search to offer larger protections to non-violent, disruptive protesters? Warner herself appears to assume so, saying the choice “has restored my religion slightly in British justice”.
The Excessive Courtroom dominated that Warner’s actions didn’t meet the edge for contempt and that it might not be within the public curiosity to prosecute her. In truth, the court docket famous it might be “a disproportionate method to this case in a democratic society”. This may be learn as affirming that protest is central to democratic life, slightly than an irritant present outdoors of it, and positively provides some assist to Warner’s religion.
However different components of the court docket’s reasoning are much less supportive. By noting that jurors swear an oath to make choices in accordance with the legislation, the court docket upheld a precept we have now seen in quite a few local weather activist trials: defendants can’t invite a jury to use the fairness precept, nor even to tell them of it. This determination could permit folks not concerned in a case to do what Warner did, however within the courtroom itself, jury fairness is to stay one thing of a grimy secret to be saved from jurors.
In deciding whether or not Warner’s actions had been adequate for contempt, the court docket additionally made a lot of her passivity in merely holding her signal; Warner didn’t try to have interaction with anybody getting into the Outdated Bailey. She was, in each her personal phrases and people of the decide, merely “a human billboard”.
Would the court docket have determined in a different way had Warner been extra assertive? The place is the road between her permissible actions and those who can be deemed an illegal hindrance of jurors getting into the court docket?
A better studying of the judgment means that, regardless of Warner’s victory, little has modified within the legislation’s view of protest. There’s a good likelihood that Warner’s actions had been tolerated for the very qualities that made her case so compelling: via her deliberate passivity, within the eyes of the legislation, she corresponded to the perfect of how protesters ought to behave. The court docket’s determination very a lot suits with a tolerance solely of protest which isn’t disruptive (and, we would argue, not significantly efficient).
It’s unlikely then that the Warner final result indicators a return to a extra liberal understanding of the position of protest as a democratic proper. The court docket’s determination, if welcome, serves slightly to underline how diminished the alternatives for actual democratic company are in Britain as we speak.
Don’t have time to examine local weather change as a lot as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox as an alternative. Each Wednesday, The Dialog’s surroundings editor writes Think about, a brief e-mail that goes slightly deeper into only one local weather situation. Be a part of the 30,000+ readers who’ve subscribed up to now.
