Protest Law

Overview

Landmark’s barristers regularly appear in the leading protest cases in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court, acting for both claimants and defendants. They act in all sectors, including the healthcare sector, the education sector, the energy and renewables sector, the security sector and in cases involving public bodies.

Landmark has been involved in some of the most recent important and well-known protest cases, including being at the forefront of the developing law relating to protest injunctions against persons unknown.

One reason for Landmark’s success is its breadth of specialisms given the public law and human rights expertise together with its property expertise.

Examples of high-profile and key cases are the following:

• Supreme Court challenge to the Abortion Service (Safe Access Zones) Bill, which makes it a criminal offence to protest within 100m of an abortion clinic. Members of Landmark Chambers acted for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.
  
• The Met Police’s banning of the Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham Common leading to a successful challenge by Reclaim These Streets in the High Court that this breached their Article 10 and 11 ECHR rights.
• The Supreme Court case of Wolverhampton CC v London Gypsies & Travellers confirming that trespass injunctions (including against protestors) could be granted against Persons Unknown
• Claims brought by energy companies against the campaign of disruption by environmental protestors (such as Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain) in a series of cases from March 2022 and subsequent committal proceedings: Valero Energy Ltd v Persons Unknown; Esso Petroleum v Persons Unknown; Esso Petroleum v Breen; Exolum Pipeline Systems v Persons Unknown; Essar Oil v Persons Unknown; Shell v Persons Unknown; UK Oil Pipelines Ltd v Persons Unknown. To date, these cases have led to over 16 hearings since March 2022 involving multiple members of Landmark.
• Challenges to environmental protestors obstructing the strategic road network and subsequent committal proceedings: National Highways Ltd v Persons Unknown.
• A challenge to a ‘Public Space Protection Order’ granted by a local authority around an abortion clinic (Dulgheriu v Ealing LBC, QBD 2018).
• Numerous claims by universities in relation to student occupational protests, including Manchester, SOAS, Birmingham, Sussex and the University of the Arts. (e.g. University of Sussex v Protestors [2010] 16 E.G. 106 (C.S.)); University of Birmingham v Person Unknown [2015] EWHC 544 (Ch)).
• Occupy London (private land) – bank building occupied as the “Bank of Ideas” (Sun Street Property Ltd v Persons Unknown [2011] EWHC 3432 (Ch)).
• Occupy London (public land) – London Stock Exchange and St Paul’s Cathedral protests (City of London Corp v Samede [2012] EWHC 34 (QB)).
• Parliament Square protest camp (Mayor of London v Hall [2010] EWCA Civ 817).

One of Landmark’s members, Yaaser Vanderman, has authored the free online book Manual on Protest Injunctions: Practice, Procedure and Persons Unknown (v1.1, 2023), the only text dealing with the topic of protest injunctions.

A number of Landmark’s barristers have been recognised in Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 for their strength in this area, and regularly give talks which focus on this subject.