In March this year, Liberties, a Berlin-based civil liberties group that maintains a critical eye on the rule of law in the European Union, produced its annual report, the Liberties Rule of Law Report, 2026. It makes for depressing reading. The report identifies a deepening rule of law crisis across the EU, marked by a decline not just in many individual EU countries, but also a decline in respect for the rule of law in the EU institutions themselves. A steady creep of undemocratic practices was documented throughout the EU, identifying significant failings in the areas of justice, corruption, media freedom, and checks and balances.
About the justice system, the report states, “Courts and the judiciary are the backbone of the rule of law. The increasingly hostile and critical public discourse towards these institutions speaks to the unwillingness of political actors in certain countries to be restrained by the law, and risks eroding this democratic cornerstone … Political interference in the court system was a widespread trend across the EU, as seen in concerns regarding the transparency of judicial bodies and the autonomy of prosecution services.
A case in point
Romania, where I have lived since 2011, was identified as one of the countries where there had been no progress, with ongoing problems with the rule of law, the balance of powers, and the politicisation of the judiciary, coupled with declining public trust in the justice system and a perception that the government is prioritising the protection of its own associates over the safety and justice of the population.
The Liberties report is concerned only with EU countries. So the UK does not figure in its analysis. On the issue of public protest, the report stresses the importance of the right of people to express their disapproval of government action in a public, vociferous way. It states, “Civic space is the environment where people can speak, protest and organise to take part in society and have their voice heard without fear of restrictions or threats.
The right to peaceful protest is a core part of that space, and often the last resort when other avenues have failed. Legal frameworks shape whether protest is enabled or extinguished … In many countries, climate and pro-Palestine protesters were specifically targeted, often through the use of emergency measures.
These developments indicate a broader shift: rather than protecting protest as a fundamental right, it is instead being framed as an issue of public security. This deters participation, reduces activism and normalises restrictions on public objection.”
What about closer to home?
In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift’s hero sets out to explain the functioning of the justice system in England:
“Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biased all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing anything unbecoming their nature or their office … In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the method is much more short and commendable: the judge first sends to sound the disposition of those in power, after which he can easily hang or save a criminal, strictly preserving all due forms of law.”
Earlier this month, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Chris Nineham, vice chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, were found guilty of breaching conditions banning demonstrators from gathering at the BBC headquarters, which is close to a synagogue. The demonstrators had wanted to use their presence outside the BBC as an opportunity to publicise what they saw as the BBC’s pro-Israel bias.
At the trial, it was claimed that Jamal and Nineham had broken through a police cordon, although video evidence appeared to show them being waved through the cordon by the police.
As a key part of their defence, their lawyers submitted a detailed legal argument to support the claim that the conditions imposed on the protest were actually unlawful. The judge dismissed this argument and informed the court that he was not obliged to give any reasons for his decision.
During the trial, it was revealed that prior to imposing the ban the police commander, Adam Slonecki, had received a letter from the Jewish Leadership Council which threatened a judicial review if he failed to impose conditions on the protest. Subsequently, Slonecki, without providing any evidence to substantiate his claim, and without mentioning the meetings that had taken place with various pro-Israeli groups, stated that the effect of previous demonstrations had been to produce a “cumulative impact” in the form of serious disruption to the Jewish way of life, and that protesters were therefore to be banned from marching in the vicinity of the BBC, something they had previously done without incident.
Protestors are vulnerable
Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director of Human Rights Watch, said that the “verdict lays bare the sheer scale of powers [the government] now possesses to silence dissent through its alarmingly repressive anti-protest laws… [and that it had the effect of] undermining the right to protest freely and without fear of harassment.”
Jamal and Nineham were prosecuted under the existing laws. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022 and the 2023 amendments to the Public Order Act of 1986 give the police the power to impose conditions based on the location, size and noise levels of public protests, and the power to ban protests deemed disruptive, giving them the ability to impose pre-emptive restrictions on public protest and freedom of assembly.
It seems that for the current Labour government, these powers are not enough. Clause 124 of the crime and policing bill, which was introduced in the House of Commons on 25 February 2025, would give a senior police officer the power to impose conditions on protests in the vicinity of a place of worship that “may intimidate” people and deter them from accessing a place of worship.
A proposed amendment to sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 would require that, when considering whether the serious disruption to the life of the community threshold is met, a senior police officer must consider any relevant cumulative disruption.
JUSTICE, the British section of the International Commission of Jurists, have stated that one of the consequences of the bill, which is currently going through parliament, will be to “exacerbate the chilling effect on protests already observed with recent public order laws and [which] lack sufficient justification”.
It seems quite possible that these provisions of the bill would be in breach of rulings previously given by the European Court of Human Rights, covering the proportionality and necessity of restrictions on the right to public protest. Perhaps Starmer is not unduly worried by this, as he has already stated that the Labour government needs to look again at the interpretation by the UK courts of the European Convention on Human Rights.
An inevitable conclusion
To repeat what the Liberties report stated about trends within the EU: “In many countries, pro-Palestine protesters were specifically targeted … By branding objection as disorder and participation in civic life as a threat, governments destroy individual freedoms alongside the very mechanisms that act as a check on power.”
It seems that Keir Starmer’s attempts to align the UK more closely with the EU apply not just to economics and trade, but also to the decline of democracy, accountability and public participation.
The way governments can damage democracy takes many different forms. In Romania, the politicisation of the judiciary, and particularly of the Constitutional Court, is one of the most serious manifestations of the attack on democracy.
In the UK, it takes a somewhat different form. But both countries share the same ideology: in their conception of democracy, the people are just a nuisance, and those in power should be able to do whatever they please without having to put up with interference from the voters, irrespective of whatever rights the people have.
Jonathan Swift wrote his wonderful satire exactly 300 years ago. Though many things have changed, much, it seems, has remained the same.
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