Community group barred from 'privatised' town centre: affront to free speech - Liberty

A community group who found themselves barred from petitioning the public in a 'privatised' town centre puts its case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg this Tuesday (15th October).

The Washington First Forum was seeking support for a petition opposing Sunderland Council plans to build a college facility on green land used by walkers and as a play area. But they were barred from talking to the public and collecting signatures outside the town's central shopping centre - and then across the whole area owned at the time by Postel (now owned by Prudential). That area included the locations of the local police station, health centre, library and other public buildings.

The town centre's owners told Washington First that they were non-political and therefore would not allow any political activity on their land (although they have apparently since allowed the Council to canvass support for changes to the local government system).
Liberty are the Washington First Forum's lawyers for their case against the UK Government tomorrow. We will argue that Washington First members' rights to free speech and free assembly (Articles 10 and 11 respectively of the European Convention of Human Rights) have been infringed - because the Government has not fulfilled its positive duty to protect these rights.

We argue that a system of law should be in place to protect these rights so that the centre of a community, even when under private ownership, is still properly accessible to members of that community. In 'privatising' these public (or quasi-public spaces) such as a town or village centre, the Government must ensure that members of that community can still freely discuss community issues there.

James Welch, Liberty's legal director and the lead solicitor for this case, says:

"People must be able to canvass support on issues that affect their community in the centre of that community - any bar on this simply shuts out true local democracy and free speech. It's an increasingly important issue as more and more town centres and public amenities may face privatisation".

The case will be heard at a two-hour hearing starting 9am Strasbourg time. The hearing will cover both admissibility and merits: we would expect a ruling on admissibility possibly within a month and certainly within six months; a ruling on merits would follow some time thereafter.