Duncan v Jones
A police officer may order a speaker to stop if the officer reasonably apprehends a breach of the peace, even if the speaker is acting lawfully.
Facts
Mrs Duncan was about to address a public meeting in the street outside an unemployed training centre, at which there had been a disturbance after she had spoken there a year earlier. A police inspector, fearing a breach of the peace, told her to hold the meeting in another street about 175 yards away. She refused and began to speak, and was arrested. She was convicted of obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty.
Legal principle
The Divisional Court upheld the conviction. Lord Hewart CJ said that English law does not recognise any special right of public meeting for political or other purposes, and that the right of assembly is nothing more than a view taken by the court of the individual liberty of the subject. The inspector reasonably apprehended a breach of the peace, so it was his duty to prevent it, and Mrs Duncan obstructed him in the execution of that duty. The case is often contrasted with Beatty v Gillbanks, and the position has since been affected by the Human Rights Act 1998 and articles 10 and 11 of the Convention.
Related cases on civil liberties: expression, assembly, privacy and police powers
- Attorney General v Guardian Newspapers Ltd (No 2) [1990] 1 AC 109
- Austin v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2009] UKHL 5, [2009] 1 AC 564
- Beatty v Gillbanks (1882) 9 QBD 308
- Campbell v MGN Ltd [2004] UKHL 22, [2004] 2 AC 457
- Christie v Leachinsky [1947] AC 573
- Derbyshire County Council v Times Newspapers Ltd [1993] AC 534
- Director of Public Prosecutions v Ziegler [2021] UKSC 23, [2022] AC 408
- Gillan v United Kingdom (2010) 50 EHRR 45
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