Strasbourg court issues judgment in long-running kettling case

In the recent Grand Chamber judgment of Austin and others v the United Kingdom, the ECtHR has ruled that police tactics used during protests in London in 2001 were not in violation of Article 5 ECHR. Bulletin readers may recall a previous bulletin article relating to kettling and its lawfulness.

This judgment is long-awaited as the case has taken over ten years to reach Strasbourg. The appellants maintained that they were deprived of their right to liberty subject to Article 5 of the ECHR during 2001 protests in London.

However, the court held that it “finds no reason to depart from the judge’s [2005] conclusion that in circumstances the imposition of an absolute cordon was the least intrusive and most effective means to be applied.” The court commented further that “moreover, again on the basis of the facts found by the trial judge, the court is unable to identify a moment when the measure changed from what was, at most, a restriction on freedom of movement to a deprivation of liberty.”

This comes as the second major obstacle for activists who argue that “kettling” is a disproportionate tactic that infringes protest rights and discourages people from taking part in demonstrations. John Halford, the Bindmans solicitor who represented some of the protestors commented that the ruling would be “near incomprehensible” to anyone present at the May Day protest.

Click here to see an article by the Guardian.

Click here to see the judgment in full.

Click here to see a post by ECHR blog on the case. 

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