A Briefer on The Right to Protest and Police Powers Assignment

A Briefer on The Right to Protest and Police Powers - Assignment Example The paper tells that pertinent legal provision that applies to the right to public protest is in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which states as follows: â€Å"Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.† The second paragraph qualifies the scope of the freedom of peaceful assembly and the freedom of association, by laying down the limitations to this right and reiterating the power of agents of the state, such as the police and armed forces, to impose lawful restrictions. The restrictions to this right are as follows: (1) interests of national security or public safety, (2) for the prevention of disorder or crime, (3) for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Article 11 should be seen alongside the right guaranteed in Article 10 of the ECHR, on which is enshrined the right of â€Å"freedom of opinion† which â€Å"shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.† It is important to note that these provisions carry both a negative and positive obligation for the state: the negative obligation is the obligation not to interfere in the exercise of the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of opinion, and the positive obligation is to take positive measures towards the free and meaningful exercise of these rights. 3. The operative word in the provision would be the word â€Å"peaceful† and there has been some debate over whether or not a particular form of protest may