Defending Our Rights

Trade unions, disability rights groups, renters, workers, migrants and benefits claimants all rely on basic civil and human rights to defend themselves against attacks on their quality of life. These include human rights, codified in the Human Rights Act 1998, and hard-won rights relating to protest. Groups from communities we work with also rely on these rights to fight for better protections in future. Protest has a proud history in Greater Manchester, from Peterloo, the Suffragettes and the Battle of Bexley Square to the Section 28 demonstrations by the LGBT community.

Recently all of these rights have been under attack by the government. In order to campaign effectively, GMLC needs these rights to remain in place, and supports efforts to keep them in tact.

Protest rights

In April 2022, the government passed the the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill. It is now called the PCSC Act 2022.

We opposed the Bill as part of the Kill the Bill Coalition in Greater Manchester since it was announced in March 2021. We believe the PCSC Act should be repealed, as it poses a serious threat to the communities we represent and work with in Greater Manchester.

The PCSC Bill gives police powers to limit, repress and criminalise protest. It is a huge Bill that also enables more Stop and Search without reasonable suspicion, and targets homeless people and Gypsy Roma Traveller (GRT) communities for further criminalisation.

For a summary of problems with the PCSC Act, check out:

• GMLC’s accessible explainer of the Bill and its dangers;
• JUSTICE’s summary of their issues with the PCSC Bill;
• Joint Briefing on Part 3 of the PCSC Bill by Liberty and others, including Greenpeace, Global Justice Now, ACORN, Equally Ours, Unison and others;
• Big Issue’s coverage of additional amendments added to the PCSC Bill in November 2021.

Though the Act has passed, we believe it will need to be repealed or significantly amended to protect people’s rights and prevent authorities from breaching individuals’ human rights.

Things you can do to oppose the Act with us:

• Sign this petition to ask the GM Mayor Andy Burnham not to implement the PCSC Act.
• Write to your MP to ask them to push for repeal of the Act.
• Sign up to GMLC’s newsletter for news of upcoming protests, events and news on these issues.
• Email development@gmlaw.org.uk to join GMLC’s campaign team to get more involved with our campaigning.
• Follow the Manchester Kill the Bill Coalition’s Twitter page for updates.

We also oppose the 2022 Public Order Bill, which aims to push through changes that the House of Lords voted out of the PCSC Act, discussed above. This includes criminalising “disruptive” but peaceful protest tactics such as “locking on” (attaching oneself to objects or other people to block access to a place: for example, attaching oneself to fences or trees on sites where fracking or environmental destruction is planned). Peaceful protest is an important way of achieving social change and the right to peacefully protest, even in disruptive ways, should be protected.

 

The Human Rights Act

In 2022, the government announced that it intends to replace the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights, a move that has been strongly criticised by human rights organisations. GMLC uses human rights where they are necessary to protect a basic standard of living for our clients. Having looked into the UK Bill of Rights proposals, we believe it risks undermining rights that need to be upheld to ensure individuals cannot be treated inhumanely by authorities with no recourse to justice. Read our articles on the issue below.

 

Other rights we defend

We need an accessible and fair justice system so that everyone has access to justice and can enforce their rights. This needs to be the case regardless of how much money they have, their nationality, what language they speak, or what disadvantages they experience in society. We campaign on access to justice to achieve this. Sometimes, this involves trying to protect legal processes that ensure authorities can be held accountable. For example, we spoke out against the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022. We will continue to push back against other changes that threaten the fairness of our legal system.

 

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