Rejected petition: End Abuse of Terrorism Law
Rejected on
All proscriptions under terrorism law should be subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure. Lifting proscriptions can be done using the netative procedure. Damage to property when protesting should be regarded as criminal damage.
The current situation is an unacceptable attack on free speech, and is in marked contrast to the situation in the USA. The government should not be able to censor views just because it disagrees. It is probably a contradition to the ECHR. The government's reliance on selecting biassed judges must end.
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.
We cannot accept your petition, as Orders to prescribe a group are already subject to the affirmative procedure. We are therefore unclear as to what action you wish the Government or Parliament to take.
Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 enables the Secretary of State to make Orders adding or removing organisations from the list of prescribed groups in Schedule 2 or amending the Schedule in some other way. These orders are subject to the affirmative procedure (section 123(4) of the Act), which means that they need to be actively approved by both Houses of Parliament.
You may wish to sign this petition which is already open, titled 'Amend terror law to remove "damage to property" as an element of terrorism': https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/731733
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.