Answers:

Police, Crime, Sentencing And Courts Bill.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill conducted their second meeting on in the month of March, 2021. In the meeting, as per majority vote, the Bill was held as trojan horse due to the mixtures of uncontentious measures making the same a controversial one. One of the most damaging sections falls under part 3 of the Bill.

The Bill is long and covers different range of matters such as strengthening of children and prevention of children from sexual abuse. The Bill also aims to take a hard approach towards driving and introducing new provisions in the condemning, probation and release of criminals.

Most of the policies were supported by the Parliament and it was given broad support in Parliament however the new laws created an outrage and noisy protests were held as it aimed to prosecute the people in Roma and Gypsy communities.

Listed below are the detailed portions of the Bill that seems problematics:

Clause 2, Part 1: Protection Of The Police:

This clause upsurges the sentence for attacking an emergency worker to two years from 12 months. This measure was given provision all over the Parliament however most of the MPs noted that emergency workers are not just the only group of persons misery attacks being violent in nature but it should be extended to all the workers across NHS, shop workers and social care.

Clause 54 – 60 Part 3 Public Order:

The given clauses criminalises those protests that lead to the causation of disruption.

Criminalising Noise:

Clauses 54 to 56 and 60 allows police to impose conditions on protests as a reply to any noise created by persons who are taking part in the same. Moreover, the police also has the power to impose penalties against those persons who breach the given conditions. There was hardly any requirement to include this section in the Bill as there are laws already in place to take care of the given situation.

Ten Years Of Sentencing For Annoying:

Another section that was added to the present Bill was to tighten police control in protests aiming to create public nuisance. People who were to be found guilty in the given offence including serious inconvenience or annoyance being serious in nature were liable to be confined for upto ten years if convicted.

Even in other portions of the Bill, high verdicts are imposed on those who cause injury to memorials and statutes while protesting. Under the given Bill, protestors have chances of spending more than ten years in the jail.  Therefore, these sections in the given law should be clearly changed as no government should ever aim to send the message that protection of a statute carries greater importance than the lives of persons.  

Keeping The Protests Out Of Vision:

According to clauses 57 and 58 the controlled area is widened around Parliament in which protests are not allowed to take place. This was not needed in the Bill as it becomes important for ministers to see any ongoing protests so that they will be able to differentiate between legitimate protest and illegitimate protest. Moreover, they will also not turn deaf ears to certain protests.