A Private Attack on Public Freedom

There is so much wrong with BAA’s current attempt to restrict the rights of environmentalists protesting against the expansion of Heathrow that it is difficult to know where to begin. Do I begin with the injunction itself, a vicious attempt to further shred a right to protest already in tatters while targeting a vast array of people, regardless of their intent? Do I talk about BAA’s lawyer, Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, a man who has made a living ripping chunks of flesh out of the body of British civil liberties while insisting that he is a democrat that believes in the right to protest? Or do I talk about the fact that such an injunction, if granted, would lay down a legal precedent of allowing companies to bully the protest groups, so vital to the functioning of our free society, with impunity?

The right to free protest is one of the most fundamental to society. Protests raise awareness about an issue, as well as creating a PR issue for either the government or the company being protested against, a point even more vital in today’s media-centric world. Through this, and the amount of support a protest demonstrates, action can be forced upon the government or a company. In a democratic society, the people must be free to express their will.

If the injunction were granted it would further reduce the right to freedom of protest from its inviolable position as a human right to a privilege, something that you’re allowed if you’re good and don’t make too much noise. That is not the point of the process. BAA want the injunction because they think a protest would be too “disruptive”. This is part of the point of a political protest, but if the protestors do cross the line into criminal territory, then there are adequate laws to deal with it and there is no cause to prevent law-abiding citizens from carrying out a peaceful protest. If the judgement expected on Monday is in favour of BAA, a major blow will have been struck against the rights of the individual citizens of the country, against people like you and me. Not only because our rights will, once again, have sustained severe damage, but also because it will have been at the hands of a private company. If the injunction is granted, it will set a precedent that will allow private companies to suppress the rights of the people. Forget about the sovereignty of Parliament or the people, we will have the sovereignty of shareholders.

What Britain requires is a law guaranteeing our rights to freedom of speech, freedom of protest and all the other freedoms that are vital to a functioning liberal democracy. Only this will provide cast-iron protection against private companies that wish to curtail the public’s freedom.

Then there is the lawyer. Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden has made a living out of finding ways to limit the right to protest. He has protected many varied organisations from the hassles of protestors, including animal testing laboratories and arms manufacturers. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these causes, he has profited from stripping British citizens of their rights.

And while he does this, he claims that he believes in democracy and human rights, saying “My thesis is that protest in a liberal democracy should be conducted peacefully and lawfully.” Of course protest should be peaceful and lawful, but there was no real suggestion that the majority of protestors were going to be anything other than this. After all, these are members of the National Trust, not the National Front.

Mr. Lawson-Cruttenden also operates the lawyers ‘taxi-rank’ principle, whereby lawyers never turn down work in their field, he is an “intellectual prostitute”, as he calls himself. It’s odd to find someone who is willing to admit that they prefer prostitution to principle.