Justice Beat - 2nd March

Welcome to the Justice Beat, CrowdJustice’s weekly roundup of the most important legal stories from around the web. This week the JusticeBeat is all about rights: European rights, the right to protest, and the royals' rights...

European rights

1. The shared assumption of the EU and the UK government is that Brexit will mean that British citizens automatically forfeit the privileges that come with European citizenship, writes Jolyon Maugham in the Guardian. But this is being tested in a case brought by a group of UK nationals living in Amsterdam. The question at stake: does losing your citzenship of an EU member state mean you lose EU citizenship and all that it confers?  

2. And in a “major climbdown”, Theresa May has conceded that EU migrants who come to Britain during the Brexit transition will have the right to settle permanently in the UK. The Guardian writes that the policy “slipped out” in a Brexit policy paper by the Home Office.

The right to protest

3. You know there’s something afoot when people are protesting around tax. Apple’s attempt to get an injunction banning French protestors from demonstrating in its main Paris store, and to fine them, has failed. The BBC writes that the French courts did not think that past behaviour indicated that future performance of the protestors would be harmful to Apple’s stores or customers, and might even be in the public interest.  The protestors were objecting to Apple’s alleged non-payment of tax.

4. Meanwhile a groundbreaking case in the UK to test whether people should have the right of peaceful protest is moving ahead. INEOS, a fracking company, were granted a pre-emptive injunction against “unknown persons”, preventing anyone from protesting the company’s activities. Activists taking the case are seeking to challenge the imposition of the injunction, and write on their CrowdJustice page that to their knowledge, the injunction restraining future protests, made in an ex parte hearing, is the first of its kind in the UK and may have a chilling effect on peaceful protests.

Royal rights

5. Future royal Meghan Markle has pledged to shine a light on women’s issues. But, the Guardian reports, although Markle has previously used her celebrity status to back Hillary Clinton, lament Brexit and attack Donald Trump as “misogynistic” and “divisive”, royal protocol dictates that she will no longer be able to comment on UK or international politics.

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This week on CrowdJustice, a challenge against the repeal of same sex marriage in Bermuda, an ornithologist is initiating a judicial review to protect Hen Harriers, and a group of climate change activists and lawyers want to overturn oil production licenses granted in Guyana, and the landmark case of EU citizenship rights.

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