The Public Order Bill is an important opportunity to reform the law relating to protest and thus to restore public order to our streets.

The Bill as introduced created several new offences which were likely to prove unworkable because they had a “reasonable excuse” defence, which would have left it open to protestors to argue that a conviction would breach their so-called “right to protest”. This line of argument was developed by the Supreme Court in its 2021 Ziegler judgment and has since been extended more widely.

The Government has rightly adopted amendments to the Bill that would limit the opportunity to defend protest in this way. Policy Exchange welcomes the Government’s newfound intention to reverse the Ziegler case.

However, the amendments in question are subject to some technical difficulties which may limit their effectiveness in practice. Policy Exchange proposes two alternatives which would more clearly reverse Ziegler and rule out political argument against conviction. Our proposed amendments specifically address and answer the risk of human rights litigation undermining the criminal law of protest.