The UK’s Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of environmentalists and set an important legal precedent in lifting part of an injunction made by the High Court on “persons unknown”.
The appellants (with NGO ‘Friends of the Earth’ intervening) were challenging an order granted in the High Court in Autumn 2017 in favour of fracking company – an order which had placed a number of restrictions on the rights of “persons unknown” to engage in anti-fracking protests. Prohibited activities included “slow walking, climbing onto vehicles, unreasonably preventing access to or egress from the sites, and unreasonably obstructing the highway”.
Longmore LJ found certain aspects of the injunction to be “problematic” holding that that the terms of the injunction must “not be so wide that they prohibit lawful conduct”; that they “must be sufficiently clear and precise” and that they “should have clear geographical and temporal limits”.
In this respect the Court found issue with the use of the term “slow walking”, an activity being both undefined and unlikely to cause harm. Making a point that may have implications for other similar cases, the judge – addressing the concept of “unreasonably” obstructing the highway – cautioned against the possibility of individuals being “chilled into not obstructing the highway at all”. He also found the phrase – “without lawful authority or excuse” – to be misleading in that “an ordinary person...is most unlikely” to understand such a barometer. Finally, he thought it “unsatisfactory” that there was no “temporal limit” on the trespass and “right of way” restrictions, and left it to the High Court judge to reconsider whether interim relief for these should be granted under the Human Rights Act.
The requirements outlined by Longmore LJ may well mark a watershed moment for “persons unknown” cases and opens the door for other organisations to challenge similar injunctions in the future.
Click here to read the full judgment in Boyd & Anor v Ineos Upstream Ltd & Ors [2019] EWCA Civ 515