Comments on: Convincing the Police we have a right to protest

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:40:46 +0000

Thanx, I was until I saw it was 80-odd paragraphs! After all, it is Saturday night.

Of course the right to protest is not absolute. If it was the Queen Street riots would have been lawful. It can be a fine line as to what’s justified and what isn’t. I doubt the police had any option but in either case but to arrest, especially in the “Speaker” case. Political events like that need more than the whim of the cops to decide if it is “OK” or not.

By: Anita

Anita — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:55:57 +0000

Hopkinson v Police [2004] 3 NZLR 704 < – there’s the decision in case you’re geeky keen to read it :)

By: Anita

Anita — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:44:06 +0000

Nick,

It seems to me that there is not an absolute right to protest in absolutely any form – so a protest which included killing people is not protected by BORA. But BORA does, in sum, provide protections to almost all kinds of contentious but not destructive protests and, in fact, to some kinds of destructive protests.

Hopkinson v Police, for example, used BORA to quash a conviction for burning the NZ flag.

This is exactly the issue, the Police should never have prosecuted someone for burning the flag as part of a protest given that it was done entirely safely – it is a reasonable protest in a democratic society – but it took lawyers and months and two court cases to get it sorted out.

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:37:09 +0000

This right to protest is interesting. I doubt it legitimately exists (I know of the sections in the NZBORA affirming the right to peaceful assembly etc) but a peaceful assembly is not necessarily a protest and there is a good legal argument that a right that has not explicitly been set out in statute amongst other rights does not exist. Also, the rights in the NZBORA are always subject to a justifiable limitation so there can never be an unfettered right to protest as some maintain.