Michael Howard's controversial new will be enacted before Parliament goes into its summer recess. to find out more, HELEN SHAW spoke to Liberty's CONOR FOLEY THE TORY GOVERNMENT has a wide ranging agenda behind the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill which is likely to be on the statute book by August.
Crime has increased massively over the past 15 years and its particularly galling for a party that prides itself on law and order to have presided over that.
Their simplistic answer is to give the police more powers and the defendant fewer rights.
This does not work, the police have been given more and more powers by the Tories yet crime has continued to increase. There's clearly an element of populism here, a kind of saloon bar approach to law and order.
The really outrageous part of the process is their response to the Roval Commission on Criminal Justice. It was set up in March 1991 because concern about the wrongful conviction of innocent people had reached such a fever pitch that fundamental reform was necessary. For all its faults the Commission argued that the right to silence should be retained.
By proposing abolition the government is ignoring the evidence of miscarriages of jusNG tice, the bulk of the legal profession and the Royal Commission recommendation.
When the Bill was published Liberty immediately focused on the right to silence taking out newspaper adverts and organising lobby's. The workload is overwhelming with over two hundred cases where we believe the safety of conviction is 1n COO We made alliances with individual family campaigns. They were primarily organised by working class people, disproportionately from ethnic minorities. If the right to silence is abolished there will be even more miscarriages of justice.
In public order terms we've been arguing that the government is attempting to criminal-. ise diversity and dissent with the Bill. This government has played the race card and the trade union card repeatedly.
It has run out of enemies and we think that in scapegoating people whose lifestyles are different - the stereotype of crusties with dogs on a bit of string they are creating a new enemy within all young people.
It fits into a general Conservative ethos which is hostile to Protests like fight against the M11 could fall foul of the new laws diversity and dissent, which is conformist, which is deferential and which considers multiculturalism to be something to be frowned upon rather than something to be celebrated. It is an ideological piece of legislation promoting the present Home Secretary Howard governments vision of a bland comrorist society.
What's been remarkable is that the idea that young people are not interested in politics, has been completely confounded. On May 1, over 10,000 people demonstrated against the Bill in Trafalgar Square.
The demonstration was built almost entirely by word of mouth. Since then we've had people speaking at marches and rallies on a weekly basis. At Glastonbury it was the political issue that everyone was talking The next stage will be when the bill reaches the statute books - probably July 21. The latest information is that as soon as the new Labour leader is elected the government will enact the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill and put parliament into recess.
We plan to have a Public Order monitoring project in place by the beginning of August to collect and publish information on what the police are actually doing and send legal observers to events because we think that their presence will embarrass the police when they come to enforcing their new powers.
We will also be seeking to draft a bill to safeguard the right to peaceful protest aimed at safeguarding peoples right to engage in non-violent direct action.
There has been complacency and a lack of understanding in the labour movement about the way 'aggravated trespass' can be used. Importantly it can be used against pickets. The trade unions should be explaining the implications of the Bill to their members and shop stewards.
If the employer owns the pavement pickets are committing the offence of 'aggravated trespass' and the police can arrest them or tell them to move. If they don't they are committing another criminal offence. It's been an uphill struggle getting those arguments across and I think we probably haven't yet.
What can be done now is to see how the Bill is enacted by having observers out there and that depends on resources. Now we really need people to join Liberty because we're just totally overstretched.
What we say to the direct action people is 'keep on keeping on'. We've argued that this is a fundamental assault on people rights - that its going to criminalise numerous activities our we don t want to scare people out of activity.
It's a bit like Section 28 which has been interpreted as a threat and has curbed the activity of local authorities because they have allowed it to.
In terms of aggravated trespass, well there's Dolly at Wanstead who's 90 who's committing the offence. Are they going to put her in prison for three months? For trespassing in her own home. Either they will do it, bring the law into disrepute and make martyrs of people or they won't in which case should be repealed. This is definitely the start of the more active phase of the campaign. • More information from: Liberty, 21 Tabard Street, London SE1.
& PICKET (the white-collar settlement date is July 1). UNISON activists must fight for a unified pay campaign. But it must be a fighting unity. If we wait until September, we risk demoralisation in the stronger, white collar sector, which could mean no action is taken.
We must move to ballot for industrial action in the white collar sector as soon as possible. Any delay only plays into the hands of management.