Protest at Salisbury Law Courts concerning freedom of juries to exercise their conscience

April 2024

A group of people from Defend our Juries staged a protest outside Salisbury law courts this week as part of their campaign to in support of a social worker Trudi Warner who was arrested for contempt of court while protesting outside the Inner London Crown Court. The issue concerns the right of a jury to exercise their conscience when taking their decision and relates to the question of defendants not being allowed to mention that they were engaged in a climate protest at the time of their arrest.

The last two posts concerning Hillsborough and the settlement by Hugh Grant of his legal case against the publishers of the Sun newspaper, NGN have mentioned the poor performance of the legal system in each. At Hillsborough, the relatives of those crushed at the disaster had to endure years of frustration and abuse not helped by the legal system and in the case of Hugh Grant, he has had to settle because the way the costs system works could lead him seriously out of pocket in the face of a publisher determined not to allow the hundreds of victims to have their day in court.

Another aspect which has surfaced recently is the passing of laws making protest harder and harder to undertake. The main motivation has been the environmental protestors who have carried out a number of eye-catching demonstrations which have highlighted the failure – in their view – of the government to take environmental matters seriously enough.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 has a series of measures which make protests much more difficult and risky. The Police now have enhanced powers to limit marches and to issue fines if those involved create too much noise nuisance for example. There is no specific right to protest but there is a right to assemble and to free speech.

The Bill is part of a hugely worrying and widespread attack on human rights from across Government which will not only see basic rights reduced across the board, but will also strip people of the means to challenge or contest their treatment.

In its reports on the bill, Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights said the proposals are “oppressive and wrong”. It accuses the government of trying to create “new powers in areas where the police already have access to powers and offences which are perfectly adequate”.

The issue of juries and conscience is a complex one, and it is not the case that juries can exercise their conscience if that means ignoring the evidence given in the trial. But what might be happening here is a feeling that the government, the police and CPS are out of touch with public opinion concerning protests, and the climate. Juries are a key part of our history and are a means for 12 good men (and women) and true to exercise some common sense, a fact that sometimes seems to be lacking in our legal system. There will be many who feel that it is relevant to say that a defendant was on some kind of protest. They may also be feeling that the government has become too determined to inhibit protests. As we have noted before, many of the rights we take for granted today were achieved following sometimes years of protest. The suffragists campaigned peacefully for decades for the right for women to have the vote and were ignored. The suffragettes protested more aggressively and eventually achieved success. Female ministers keen on the new laws might wish to reflect they would not have the opportunity to do so had it not been for their sisters willing to protest and who suffered grievously when imprisoned.

Sources: BBC, Salisbury Journal, Amnesty