Police powers
R (on the application of National Council for Civil Liberties) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Public Law Project intervening) [2024] EWHC 1181 (Admin), [2024] All ER (D) 89 (May)
The Administrative Court, in allowing the claimant’s judicial review claim in part, held that the Public Order Act 1986 (Serious Disruption to the Life of the Community) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/655), which strengthened police powers concerning protests, were unlawful. Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 (POA 1986) empowered the police to impose conditions on public processions and assemblies if an officer reasonably believed that there would be ‘serious disruption to the life of the community’. The government laid two amendments to the Public Order Bill, which sought to expand the definition of ‘serious disruption’ in POA 1986 to include anything which was ‘more than minor’. However, the House of Lords had rejected one of the amendments. Before the Public Order Act 2023 (POA 2023) had received Royal Assent, the government had then exercised the ‘Henry VIII power’ to amend legislation by secondary measure, and it had laid draft regulations before Parliament, under
