The right to protest

Dear editor,

I am a human rights lawyer specialising on the right to peaceful assembly and association, also known as the right to protest. I’m writing in response to the article Protests spoil residents’ weekends. Where to draw the line? (CBD News, August 2024). 

While I understand the frustration of disrupted weekends, I believe it is crucial to consider the broader context and history of peaceful protests in our city and on our community more broadly.

Historically, significant social changes have been achieved through protests, often seen as obstructive and annoying at the time. Consider the suffragists who demanded the right to vote. They were often seen as disruptive and were brutally repressed, including through the use of sexual violence, before their brave efforts resulted in victory. Their protests, now celebrated as a pivotal moment in history, were once widely criticised and condemned as being extremist and obstructive.

Similarly, the fight for the eight-hour workday, a right we take for granted today, was won through persistent peaceful protests. Workers building the Parliament of Victoria and the University of Melbourne downed tools and obstructed roads and worksites until their demands were met. These actions were no doubt inconvenient to some but ultimately beneficial for all of us.

Framing protests as the problem is, in fact, the problem. It also allows politicians, who are obviously failing to heed the calls of their protesting constituents, to escape accountability. Protest is a valid and lawful use of public space. Even if one does not agree with the message or tactics, as long as the protest is peaceful – a term with a specific legal definition – it must be allowed, even if it is temporarily obstructive or inconvenient to some.

International and Victorian human rights law already provides clear guidelines for facilitating protests and balancing the rights of all public space users. Ignorance of these guidelines is high, so I encourage your readers to familiarise themselves with them via the Human Rights Law Centre’s Declaration of our Right to Protest. The Declaration outlines how protests should be protected and how the rights of protesters and others in public space should be balanced. The Declaration can be read here.

Many of us today, including the writer of the article, would not be able to vote or enjoy the eight-hour workday including being able to form and join unions without our right to peaceful protest. Similarly, we would not be able to fight against inappropriate development in our beautiful city, advance LGBTIQ+ rights, ensure safe and accessible abortion care, call for an end to apartheid, or campaign for peace, women’s rights, accessible public transport, adequate and affordable homes without our right to peaceful protest. These rights and freedoms we take for granted today were not gifts from parliaments, police or politicians; they were fought for and won through protests big and small.

Before jumping down with manufactured outrage at the truest expression of participatory democracy – peaceful protest – we must remember the many benefits of protests over the decades because protesters are often vindicated by history, even if they are criticised in today’s headlines.

Sincerely,
David Mejia-Canales
Senior Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre •