MR JUSTICE NICKLIN Approved Judgment
MBR Acres Ltd -v- Curtin
decision whether it is in the public interest to prosecute. Those important safeguards – in addition to the safeguards in the substantive criminal law – ensure that in our society proper respect is afforded to protest rights under Article 10/11. Even if a private prosecution were brought in a protest case, the Director of Public Prosecutions has the power to take over and discontinue the prosecution. 371. In protest cases, there are additional reasons to be concerned at the risk of abuse. The Court may well grant the injunction (and its enforcement) to a private individual, often the very person against whom the protest is directed. 372. These concerns are not speculative. As the experience in this case has demonstrated, the risks of abuse are real. In the Second Contempt Application, the Claimants actively sought the imposition of a sanction on Ms McGivern, a solicitor, as a “Person Unknown”, for behaviour that was either not a civil wrong at all, or a breach of the civil law that was utterly trivial. Yet, because of the terms of the Interim Injunction Order, and the imposition of the Exclusion Zone, the Claimants were able to pursue contempt application against her leading to a 2-day hearing. In the contempt application against Mr Curtin – the Third Contempt Application – the Claimants brought an application that sought to punish Mr Curtin for lending his footwear to a person in a dinosaur costume whom Mr Curtin was alleged to have encouraged to enter the Exclusion Zone. Such a claim would be laughable, if it did not have such serious implications. Apart from Ground 2, the other grounds advanced against Mr Curtin were trivial. None of actions alleged against Mr Curtin amounted to civil wrongs. 373. Had the Crown Prosecution Service been responsible for deciding whether to bring criminal proceedings against Ms McGivern or Mr Curtin for causing or authorising a person in a dinosaur costume to enter the Exclusion Zone, I am confident that a decision would have been made that it was not in the public interest to prosecute. The Claimants, however, are not subject to any analogous requirement to consider whether it is necessary or proportionate to bring a contempt application. On two separate occasions, therefore, they have shown themselves incapable of exercising any sense of proportionality in launching and pursuing the contempt applications in respect of alleged breaches of the Interim Injunction. As a result of the Second Contempt Application, the Court imposed the Contempt Application Permission Requirement (see [49] above) to protect against the abuse of using the Interim Injunction as a weapon. 374. All but one of the allegations brought in the Third Contempt Application against Mr Curtin were trivial. This immediately raises the question as to why the Claimants would pursue trivial breaches of the Interim Injunction. As the Claimants have not had an opportunity to address this specific issue, I shall leave its final resolution, if necessary, to the hearing at which this judgment will be handed down and the Court makes all consequential orders. M: The relief sought by the Claimants (1) Against Mr Curtin 375. The Claimants do not seek damages against Mr Curtin. 376. The terms of the final injunction order sought by the Claimants against Mr Curtin are set out in Annex 2 to the judgment.
164
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator