Protestors win right to wear blood-splattered clothes

11 November 2009

Animal rights protestors could wear skull masks and blood-splattered clothes as part of a Halloween protest against drugs company Novartis, the High Court has ruled.

Novartis, which has admitted commissioning research from Huntingdon Life Sciences in the past, sought to extend an existing injunction to prevent the demonstrators at the protest in Horsham wearing blood-splattered clothing, masks and balaclavas.

The amended injunction would also have prevented the protestors from carrying banners claiming that the company or its employees “murder, torture, abuse and/or otherwise unlawfully kill animals.”

The court heard that the original injunction, obtained by the company last year, banned them from assaulting, threatening workers or taking pictures of them and created exclusion zones where demonstrations were not allowed.

Delivering judgment in Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK v Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) [2009] EWHC 2716(QB), Mr Justice Sweeney said he would adopt a “cautious approach.”

He went on: “It is impossible to contend that SHAC is an entity whose operations, in the past, have stayed within the law.” He said the activists had been involved in a two-pronged campaign “designed to bring down companies associated with Huntingdon Life Sciences and ultimately HLS itself.”

Sweeney J said that during this time SHAC had not been a political or public interest campaign for the purposes of article 10 (freedom of expression) or article 11(freedom of assembly and association) ECHR.

However, he said that since the arrest of three founding members of SHAC, there had been a “public toning down” of its position.

The judge said it was important that court orders did not make “a challenging public order situation worse.”

He said the banning of masks or costumes could create considerable practical problems for the police, risk raising tensions and interfere with the rights of those who wanted to wear inoffensive face masks.

Mr Justice Sweeney said since no objection was made to shouting of words which the company sought to be prohibited on banners, the distinction was “untenable” and he rejected the proposed restriction.

He added that his rejection of the “great majority” of the application to amend the injunction should not be taken as a license for harassment or any other criminal activity.

Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, solicitor advocate for Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK, said the ruling was not a defeat because the court accepted for the first time that the company’s employees’ article 8 rights were engaged.

He said that all the issues would be discussed in full at the High Court next February, when Novartis would seek to make permanent the terms of the original interim injunction.

A SHAC spokeswoman said the Halloween demonstration had gone ahead with protestors in blood-splattered lab coats, holding banners carrying the words “animal abuse” and “animal torture.”

She went on: “The visual aspect is an important part of any demonstration. If they had got this ruling, it could have been used against any peaceful protest and set a dangerous precedent.”