MR JUSTICE NICKLIN Approved Judgment
MBR Acres Ltd -v- Curtin
continually fluctuating body of protestors. It wishes to use remedies in private litigation in effect to prevent what is sees as public disorder. Private law remedies are not well suited to such a task. As the present case shows, what are appropriate permanent controls on such demonstrations involve complex considerations of private rights, civil liberties, public expectations and local authority policies. Those affected are not confined to Canada Goose, its customers and suppliers and protestors. They include, most graphically in the case of an exclusion zone, the impact on neighbouring properties and businesses, local residents, workers and shoppers. It is notable that the powers conferred by Parliament on local authorities, for example to make a public spaces protection order under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, require the local authority to take into account various matters, including rights of freedom of assembly and expression, and to carry out extensive consultation: see, for example , Dulgheriu -v- Ealing London Borough Council [2020] 1 WLR 609 . The civil justice process is a far blunter instrument intended to resolve disputes between parties to litigation, who have had a fair opportunity to participate in it.”
351. Although the Supreme Court in Wolverhampton disagreed with the Court of Appeal’s decision in Canada Goose (see [133]-[138]), that was on the ground that Court of Appeal was wrong to find that a final injunction could not bind ‘newcomers’. The Supreme Court did not specifically address – or contradict – the Court of Appeal’s identification of the problems of attempting to use civil injunctions to control public protest. The decision found that contra mundum ‘newcomer’ injunctions can, as a matter of principle, be granted in protest cases, but says nothing (beyond what is noted in [235]-[236]) about the particular issues that arise in such cases, other than to acknowledge the different issues that will call for decision and that, with all contra mundum ‘newcomer’ injunctions, a compelling justification for the order must be demonstrated. (d) The need to identify the prohibited acts clearly in the terms of any injunction 352. The Supreme Court set out the requirements of any contra mundum ‘newcomer’ injunction:
[222] It is always important that an injunction spells out clearly and in everyday terms the full extent of the acts it prohibits, and this is particularly so where it is sought against persons unknown, including newcomers. The terms of the injunction – and therefore the prohibited acts – must correspond as closely as possible to the actual or threatened unlawful conduct. Further, the order should extend no further than the minimum necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was granted; and the terms of the order must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable persons affected by it to know what they must not do. [223] Further, if and in so far as the authority seeks to enjoin any conduct which is lawful viewed on its own, this must also be made absolutely clear, and the authority must be prepared to satisfy the court that there is no other more proportionate way of protecting its rights or those of others. [224]It follows but we would nevertheless emphasise that the prohibited acts should not be described in terms of a legal cause of action, such as trespass or nuisance, unless this is unavoidable. They should be defined, so far as
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