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The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was not intended to be used to restrict those who were exercising their right to protest about a matter of public interest.
Mr Justice Eady so stated in the Queen's Bench Division when allowing an application by the third defendants, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, to vary an injunction, granted by Lord Justice Schiemann sitting in the Court of Appeal on October 15, 1997 restraining the third defendants among others from harassing the plaintiffs, by removing the third defendants' name from it.
Mr Peter Roth, QC and Miss Jessica Simor for the defendants; Mr Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, solicitor, for the plaintiffs.
MR JUSTICE EADY said that the plaintiffs, a company which undertook research on animals, had been granted an ex parte injunction against the defendants, among others, restraining them from any course of conduct amounting to harassment.
The plaintiffs had complained of a sustained and menacing anti-vivisection campaign directed at itself and its employees, which included many breaches of section 1 of the 1997 Act.
In the light of evidence adduced by the defendants for the first time at the inter partes hearing, the plaintiffs' allegations could not be sustained and the defendants' application would be granted.
His Lordship went on to say that the legislators of the Act would no doubt be surprised to see how widely its terms were perceived to extend by some people.
The 1997 Act was clearly not intended by Parliament to be used to clamp down on the discussion of matters of public interest or upon the rights of political protest and public demonstration which was so much a part of our democratic tradition.
His Lordship had little doubt that the courts would resist any wide interpretation of the Act as and when the occasion arose.
It was unfortunate that the terms in which the provisions of the Act were couched were seen to sanction any such restrictions.
Solicitors: Mr John Cooper, Southwark; Lawson-Cruttenden & Co.
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