L sought to assert a right to hold public meetings in Trafalgar Square.
Held: (obiter) There was no public right to occupy Trafalgar Square for the purpose of holding public meetings. The Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings (in whom the care, control, management and regulations of the Square was vested) had power to prohibit the holding of such meetings there.
The Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings (in whom the care, control, management and regulations of Trafalgar Square is vested) have power to prohibit the holding of meetings on it, and there was no general right on the part of the public to occupy Trafalgar Square for the purpose of holding public meetings.
Wills J said that an assembly ‘to the detriment of others having equal rights [is] in its nature irreconcilable with the right of free passage.’ and ‘The only ‘dedication’ in the legal sense that we are aware of is that of a public right of passage, of which the legal description is a ‘right for all Her Majesty’s subjects at all seasons of the year freely and at their will to pass and repass without let or hindrance.’ A claim on the part of persons so minded to assemble in any numbers, and for so long a time as they please to remain assembled, upon a highway, to the detriment of others having equal rights, is in its nature irreconcilable with the right of free passage, and there is, so far as we have been able to ascertain, no authority whatever in favour of it . . Things are done every day, in every part of the kingdom, without let or hindrance, which there is not and cannot be a legal right to do, and not unfrequently are submitted to with a good grace because they are in their nature incapable, by whatever amount of user, of growing into a right’.
As to the issue of a summons by the magistrates: ”Nothing can be clearer or more settled than that if the justices have really and bona fide exercised their discretion, and brought their minds to bear upon the question whether they ought to grant the summons or not, this court is no court of appeal from the justices, and has no jurisdiction to compel them to exercise their judgment in a particular way.’
Wills J, Grantham J
(1888) 21 QBD 191, [1888] UKLawRpKQB 135
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Jones and Lloyd HL 4-Mar-1999
21 people protested peacefully on the verge of the A344, next to the perimeter fence at Stonehenge. Some carried banners saying ‘Never Again,’ ‘Stonehenge Campaign 10 years of Criminal Injustice’ and ‘Free Stonehenge.’ The officer in charge . .
Cited – Jones and Lloyd v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 23-Jan-1997
The appellants had been peacefully protesting at Stonehenge. They were among others who refused to leave when ordered to do so under an order made by the police officer in charge declaring it to be a trespassory assembly under the 1986 Act. They . .
Cited – Kotegaonkar v Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Another Admn 19-Jul-2012
The court was asked: ‘can a way which is not connected to another public highway, or to some other point to which the public have a right of access, itself be a public highway?’ A path had been registered over part of te claimant’s land, but with no . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Torts – Other, Magistrates
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.192187