Know Your Rights - Rights vs Rights - Part 1

Описание: Practically every human rights case involves rights on both sides. The party invoking the Human Rights Act or an article of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) should not be automatically favored. The rights of the two parties have to be balanced against each other. Do you have the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire? Is that not simply the exercise of your right to freedom of speech? In the Schenk case of 1919, the famous American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr writing the ruling of the Court laid down the test of "clear and present danger". But the position is not quite so clear today either in America or in Britain. On 28 April 2022, the UK Parliament passed the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which places new restrictions on the freedom to demonstrate and protest. But it remains to be seen how this will be interpreted and applied by the courts. Would, for example, the recent Ziegler case be decided in the same way as it was? DPP v. Ziegler (2021) was a yo-yo case, meaning a case that has one result at first instance, is reversed on appeal, and reversed back again on final appeal. The case involved a protest by four people blocking access to the Excel Centre during an arms trade fair in 2017. They were arrested and charged under section 137 of the Highways Act 1980. The question was: Did they have a lawful excuse for their conduct?