The Sofia police have been denied permission to appeal for a second time to a Supreme Court ruling that the forces violated the rights of the organizers of the Sarah Everard vigil by holding the planned event.
Reclaim These Streets (RTS) has offered a socially vigilant vigil for a 33-year-old woman who was killed by former Metropolitan employee Wayne Cousins near where she went missing in Clefham, south London, in March last year.
The four women who founded RTS and planned the vigil challenged the power to run the event, which also aimed to protest protests against violence against women.
They withdrew from the vigil after their forces said they would be fined £ 10,000 each and possibly prosecuted if the event continued, and instead held a spontaneous vigil and protest.
Jessica Lee, Anna Burley, Henna Shah and Jamie Klingler said the decisions taken by the forces before the planned vigil violated their human rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and said the forces had not assessed the potential risk to public health.
In a decision in March, their claim was upheld by Lord Judge Warby and Judge Holgate, who found that Metropolitan’s pre-event decisions were “not in accordance with the law”.
After examining an application for documents – without a hearing – from the Met to challenge the decision in the Court of Appeal, in April the judges refused the compulsory permission to appeal.
Met then continued the challenge, asking the appellate court to grant permission, but this was rejected in writing on Tuesday.
Rejecting the appeal, Lord Judge Holroyd said in a court order that while acknowledging the application of the principles governing the right to protest, “it can be difficult for the police and that the difficulty may increase when considering a future event”, they were “Clear” and no separate guidelines were needed.
The judge said he did not see any “disputable grounds on which to say that.” [high] the court’s decision is wrong. “
He added: “The assessment of the evidence by the court does not involve a fundamental error or unsustainable finding … therefore the appeal has no real prospect of success and there is no other significant reason why the appeal should be considered.
“The authorization to appeal must therefore be refused.”
The ruling means that the forces will not be able to further challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling.
RTS said on Twitter that they were “excited to announce” the court’s decision after receiving the order, while Klingler tweeted: “It’s finally END. An excuse. “
A Met police spokesman said in a statement: “We are aware of the decision of the Court of Appeal. We will consider it carefully and comment further in time. “
Summarizing the Supreme Court’s decision, Lord Judge Warby said: “The relevant decisions of [Met] they had to make statements at meetings, in letters and in a press statement, in the sense that the Covid provisions in force at the time meant that the vigil would be illegal.
“These statements interfered with the applicants’ rights because each of them had a ‘chilling effect’ and had at least some causal contribution to the decision to cancel the vigil.
“None of [force’s] the decisions are in accordance with the law; evidence shows that [force] has failed to fulfill its legal obligation to assess whether the applicants may have a reasonable excuse to conduct the collection or to carry out the fact-specific assessment of proportionality necessary to comply with that obligation.
RTS took urgent action the day before the planned event, requesting a declaration from the Supreme Court that any ban on outdoor gatherings under coronavirus regulations at the time was “subject to the right to protest”.
However, their request was rejected and the court also refused to declare that the alleged violent policy of “banning all protests, regardless of the circumstances” is illegal.
Cousins, 49, was sentenced to life in prison in Old Bailey in September after confessing to killing Everard.
The spontaneous vigil of the police department drew criticism across the political spectrum after women were handcuffed and taken away by officers.
A report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Police and Fire and Rescue Services concludes that the police “acted correctly” in dealing with the event, but also finds it a “public relations disaster” and describes some statements made by members of the forces as a “deaf tone”.
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