There is an amendment to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 buried deep within a Schedule (see pages 85 and 86 out of 150 pages) of the Serious Crime Act 2007 (.pdf version, the HTML one is not yet online), which has now received its Royal Assent and is now the law, although it has not just yet been brought into force.
This is a further tightening of the screws on dissent and protests against the unpopular Labour government in the far too large Designated Area around Parliament.
The equally unpopular Opposition parties have failed in their duty of holding the Government to account, by not bothering to scrutinise this amendment in detail, let alone to reject it entirely, as they should have done.
Who exactly are the Labour political appartachiki hoping to catch under this amended legislation, who they have not been able to legally threaten, harass and intimidate under the previous version of this unpopular and repressive law ?
We fear that this catch all amendment seeks to criminalise websites like this one, and other internet based supporters of the the right to peaceful protest around Parliament and beyond,
We have never advocated breaking the law, evil as it is, but this "catch all" amendment will easily be enough to threaten us or our internet service providers etc. with arrest, DNA sampling, fingerprinting, seizure of computers etc, even if no actual charges are brought.
When this Schedule comes into force, we may have to suspend this ParliamentProtest.org.uk website.
The amendment:
Serious Crime Act 2007 (c. 27) Schedule 6 - Minor and consequential amendments: Part 2 Part 2 - Other minor and consequential amendmentsSerious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (c. 15)
64 (1) The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 136 (penalties in relation to demonstrations in the vicinity of Parliament) for subsection (4) substitute--
"(4) A person who is guilty of an offence under section 44 or 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 in relation to which an offence mentioned in subsection (1), (2) or (3) is the anticipated offence (as defined by section 47(9) of that Act) is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks, to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale or to both.
Level 4 on the standard scale is currently a fine of £2500
(4A) If a person is guilty of an offence under section 46 of that Act by reference to an offence mentioned in subsection (1), (2) or (3), the maximum term of imprisonment applicable for the purposes of section 58(6) of that Act to the offence so mentioned is a term not exceeding 51 weeks."
Sections 44, 45 and 46 of this Serious Crimes Act 2007 seem to further extend and widen the catch all nature of existing inchoate offences:
PART 2ENCOURAGING OR ASSISTING CRIME
Inchoate offences
44 Intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence
(1) A person commits an offence if--
(a) he does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence; and
(b) he intends to encourage or assist its commission.(2) But he is not to be taken to have intended to encourage or assist the commission of an offence merely because such encouragement or assistance was a foreseeable consequence of his act.
45 Encouraging or assisting an offence believing it will be committed
A person commits an offence if--
(a) he does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence; and
(b) he believes--
(i) that the offence will be committed; and
(ii) that his act will encourage or assist its commission.46 Encouraging or assisting offences believing one or more will be committed
(1) A person commits an offence if--
(a) he does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of one or more of a number of offences; and
(b) he believes--
(i) that one or more of those offences will be committed (but has no belief as to which); and
(ii) that his act will encourage or assist the commission of one or more of them.
Criminalising anything and everything which is "capable of encouraging or assisting" is hugely catch all and far too broad wording to be just - this applies to all of the criminal offences mentioned in this repressive legislation, not just the SOCPA section 132 offences.
- What exactly does Section 44 (2) mean by "merely because such encouragement or assistance was a foreseeable consequence of his act" ?
- How exactly does the prosecution establish "belief" ?
- How does a defendant defend themselves against an accusation of "belief" ?
- In terms of the restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to protest around Parliament, were is the dividing line between the offence of "organising" a demonstration without prior written permission from the Police (see SOCPA section 132 (1) (a)), and inchoately "encouraging or assisiting" one ?
- How much will this all cost to enforce ?
We will not be surprised if this Schedule of the Serious Crime Act 2007 is Commenced by Order and and brought into force before the Government has bothered to respond to the public consultation on Managing Protest Around Parliament