 UK Perspective | Correspondents' Reports | Government and Legislation | Courts and Judgments | Legal Press | Law Schools | Study Law in the UK | Other || World Law Home —————————————————————————————
Alisdair A. Gillespie, Barrister Welcome to a slightly overdue Perspective. In this issue I'm going to focus on one story: the widespread petrol protests of the past week (click here for background). This may seem to be a political rather than a legal event, but I'll be concentrating on the legality of the protests. In the meantiume I am setting aside some other important stories, perhaps the biggest of which concerns a pending court ruling on the possible separation of Siamese twins. In the coming weeks I will be writing a Perspective dedicated to this matter, but for the moment I am going to wait until the decision has been made so that the column can detail the whole story. So back to the fuel protests. Fuel in the United Kingdom is very expensive. This is purposely so. At the moment a litre of unleaded petrol costs on average 80 pence per litre. Of that, something like 80% of the cost is tax. Traditionally this high tax has been levied for a number of reasons, but the main ones were environmental - to help encourage cleaner and more efficient cars to be developed and purchased and to help subsidise public transport. Recently the suggestion has been made that the tax levied on fuel also helps support other public services, principally education and the National Health Service. However, the United Kingdom has the most expensive petrol within the European Union and with the recent increases in price of crude oil, the price has jumped astronomically over the past 18 months. Last week a group of farmers and lorry drivers decided to launch a protest. At the beginning of the week, this took the form of a "go-slow" whereby lorries would drive in tandem down the principal roads, forming a rolling road-block (click here for story). Later on in the week this escalated into a blockade, whereby fuel was prevented from leaving depots, which in turn ensured that no one could get any fuel (click here for story). Now what are the legal implications of all this? To begin, the government suggested that the protests were illegal and that the police had failed to ensure petrol could get through (click here for story). One of the first things to note is that whilst the government can allege that the police did nothing, and to some degree ministers can place pressure on the chief officers of police, they cannot order them to do anything. The police service in the United Kingdom are operationally independent: the government cannot order them to employ tactics or solve situations. The constitutional justification for this is that it will help ensure that if a corrupt government were established, the UK would not become a police state. It should also be noted that protesting in the United Kingdom is not illegal. So why did the government say that these protests were illegal? It was suggested that in many cases, tanker drivers who wanted to cross the lines were being intimidated by the protesters. Intimidation is certainly illegal and in a large-scale protest like this one, there would undoubtedly be an element of intimidation, but the police and protesters allege that it was not as widespread as some made out. The protesters - and indeed many of the tanker drivers themselves - stated that the real reason why they did not cross the lines was because they supported the blockade. The oil companies used to operate their own fleet of tankers, but it is now more common to sub-contract the delivery to private firms. These firms were affected by the heavy taxation and so supported the protests. The other common allegation of illegality concerned the blockades' supposed obstruction of roads. The obstruction of the highway is an illegal act, and the police have powers of arrest and removal in these situations. There are other types of criminal offences dealing with public order too, so why were these not employed? The reason is that although they can be used, they should not be used automatically. There is a right to protest, or there will be. Regular readers of this column will have heard me make reference to the Human Rights Act 1998 before. This incorporates the European Convention of Human Rights into domestic law. Two of the rights it contains is the right to freedom of expression, and the right to freedom of assembly. In effect, therefore, there is a right to protest. The common law has almost certainly recognised this too, but the 1998 Act in practice codifies this right. Thus the police need to balance the right to protest against the legal powers they used. One of the key principles of the European Convention on Human Rights is that actions of the state must be "proportionate." Arguably what the police did in this protest was to act proportionately. There were very few roads that were blocked for a continuous time. The rolling roadblocks were for a few hours and were well policed. Where a blockade was established, it was to a refinery and not a public road. The public could come and go as they wanted, as could emergency vehicles like ambulances, fire-engines and police vehicles. The question the police needed to answer, therefore, was "is it proportionate to invoke the public order and obstructing the highway powers, when in reality it is private land which is being obstructed?" The answer to that must have been "no" - not least because the vast proportion of the country approved of the protest. It would have been a different story if the protest was not peaceful, but with the exception of isolated incidents, the entire protest was one of good humour. The protection of the European Convention of Human Rights is dependent on peacefulness and so whilst this continued, the police believed they were obliged - and it is submitted they were correct in this assumption - to allow the protest to continue. The fuel protests were hugely embarrassing to the government. Indeed it could be argued that in some situations it stopped them governing, because the lack of fuel caused chaos to the country. (Although supplies were given to essential services) However just because a protest happens to be particularly effective and embarrassing does not mean that it should be ended by force. The police realised this and I am sure when the temperature lowers slightly, the government will realize this too. Over the weekend it was reported that the government is considering special legislation to make it illegal to refuse to deliver petrol (click here for story). This would be a remarkable infringement of civil liberties if it were allowed to proceed. The justification for the power is that one section of society should not be able to bring the state to its knees and create a situation where the population is incapable of working properly. But this is not a reason by itself to prevent protests, as the right to protest is the bedrock upon which democracy is built. There are other options open to the state, not least of all the ability to use state-owned tankers to ferry fuel to essential services. This would not be using the machinery of the state to break a protest because the amount of deliveries would be somewhat restricted. It would certainly be a less drastic step than that which is being considered. Missed last week's UK Perspective? Read it here! ——————————————————————— JURIST's own correspondent in the United Kingdom reports on recent developments in UK law: ——————————————————————— Government and Legislation The United Kingdom does not have a written constitution. The equivalent body of law is based on statute, common law, and "traditional rights." Changes may come about formally through new acts of parliament, informally through the acceptance of new practices and usage, or by judicial precedents. Although parliament has the theoretical power to make or repeal any law, in actual practice the weight of 700 years of tradition restrains arbitrary actions. Executive government rests nominally with the monarch but actually is exercised by a committee of ministers (cabinet) traditionally selected from among the members of the House of Commons and, to a lesser extent, the House of Lords. The prime minister is the leader of the majority party in the Commons, and the government is dependent on its support. Parliament represents the entire country and can legislate for the whole or for any constituent part or combination of parts. The maximum parliamentary term is 5 years, but the prime minister may ask the monarch to dissolve parliament and call a general election at any time. The focus of legislative power is the 650-member House of Commons, which has sole jurisdiction over finance. The House of Lords, although shorn of most of its powers, can still review, amend, or delay temporarily any bills except those relating to the budget. Only a few of the 1,200 members of the House of Lords attend its sessions regularly. The House of Lords has more time than the House of Commons to pursue one of its more important functions--debating public issues. The judiciary is independent of the legislative and executive branches but cannot review the constitutionality of legislation. Source: U.S. Department of State
Courts and Judgments
Legal Press ——————————————————————— Law Schools
Most UK universities offer law courses. In the United Kingdom, law is a three-year undergraduate degree - entry is decided by reference to "A-Level" points. "A-Levels" are examinations students take in the two years prior to entering university and each grade is worth a different level of points. The hierarchy of the UK law schools is roughly equal to those who wish or demand students who score the highest. The older universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, London etc.) are still considered to be some of the most prestigious universities in which to "read law", but many newcomers have entered the field and, infused with energetic faculty members and diverse student bodies, are beginning to give the traditional institutions a run for their money. There is no set format for UK law teaching; each university is allowed to decide how the subject will be taught. Some universities offer a large number of lectures and a small number of tutorials (e.g. "Oxbridge" and Durham), whereas other universities prefer more tutorials where near one-to-one tuition can be offered (e.g. Northumbria University) The only common thread uniting law degrees is that for them to qualify as law degrees for professional purposes, students must study Constitutional law, E.U. law, Contract Law, Law of Torts, Criminal Law, Land Law and Equity and Trusts. At the end of three years students are awarded a bachelor's degree in law and they must then decide what to do next. A large proportion - possibly around one-third - will decide not to enter a career as a lawyer. The others must choose between becoming a barrister (essentially, a courtroom litigator) or a solicitor. Students who do not have a qualifying law degree (either because they have not studied one of the subjects listed above, or because they have read for another degree) but who nonetheless wish to enter the professions must do a one-year course called the Common Professional Examination and then they too have to choose which profession to enter. A would-be barrister has to take the Bar Vocational Course, which lasts one year. Prior to 1998 this course was taken in London at the Inns of Court School of Law, but nowadays there are several universities which also offer the training. Would-be solicitors study the Legal Practice Course, which is also one-year long and is offered by numerous universities, as well as by the College of Law (the formal "solicitor's university"). After completing their respective professional courses, law students then undergo professional training. A barrister undertakes a year of "pupillage" in barristers' "chambers", which is actually two six-month placements. A solicitor takes a training contract ("articles") which lasts for two years. Legal education in England and Wales is changing quite rapidly, and in the opinion of some academic and professional observers a number of the older UK universities are not changing fast enough. Many UK law schools now offer skills-based learning like moots and advocacy, and many universities are also offering part-time or distance-learning degrees. The Open University (which was set up by the government in the 1960s primarily to teach adults by distance learning, which then meant correspondence and television) is leading the way in this field in general; in law, the University of London now offers an external LL.B. degree that can be taken by distance learning, and Strathclyde University in Scotland is offering an LL.M. through the internet. Bringing modern teaching methods to bear on legal education will help to ensure that law remains one of the more popular and respected degrees in the United Kingdom.
Alisdair A. Gillespie
Study Law in the UK Summer Study Abroad
Other |
WORLD
LAW/United Kingdom
|