Bad Boys, Bad Boys...
Watcha gonna do when they come for you...! The Guardian recently published police footage of two women at a climate change camp who were arrested after asking one of the officers to provide his badge number and identify himself. What ensues most certainly isn't nearly as severe as something out of America's Wildest Police Videos, but perhaps just the reality of officers following procedures, maybe a demonstration of procedures written by idiots, or simply a symptom of a culture of policing that has lost the skill of communication many civil lawsuits ago. You
decide if it's overkill.
It's not dissimilar to a previous story that the Guardian wrote not too long ago where
two Austrian tourists had their holiday photos erased by a police officer in the name of anti-terrorism. The recent story surrounding the released footage at the climate camp seems to have initiated an interesting article hosted on the Guardian website as well in conjunction with lawyers from Liberty and readers who participated in
real-time Q&A earlier today. The theme was obviously to educate public regarding their civil liberties and human rights in the recent spate of alleged bullying by certain members of the police. There are lots of good questions raised here and it's very useful for citizens to know their rights when approached by officers these days in public situations and lawful protests that are prone to heightened police surveillance.
Is a person entitled to decline a section 44 'stop and search' request/order?
The short answer is no. It is an offence under section 47 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to fail to stop when required to do so by a constable under section 44 or to "wilfully obstruct" a constable in the exercise of his or her powers under section 44. The same issue therefore arises as I mentioned in response to Dabby1, i.e. you will not be guilty of the offence if the officer is acting outside his or her powers. The problem is that section 44 is so broad - giving the police the power to stop and search for any reason or no reason as long as they are looking for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism - that it is almost impossible to challenge. See our related Liberty Clinic posts: Question 16: Section 44 data and Question one: Stop and search
Also, because there is no requirement for the police to publish section 44 authorisations, you can't even check at the time that the police officer who stops you under section 44 is lawfully entitled to do so. We have a case which is currently in the European Court in Strasbourg (Gillan & Quinton v UK) in which we argue that section 44 violates Articles 5 (right to liberty) and 8 (private life) of the European Convention, largely because of this lack of accountability.
- Corinna Ferguson, Liberty.
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