The Council of State has ruled in favor of Amnesty International and others in a case of principle against the municipality of Maastricht. At the heart of the case was the question of whether municipalities may require that organizers of demonstrations hire their own certified traffic controllers. The Council of State ruled that this is not allowed. PILP assisted the plaintiffs as a lawyer.
‘We are pleased with the ruling by the Council of State, which makes it clear once and for all that mayors throughout the Netherlands may not simply require demonstrators to arrange traffic controllers themselves, and thus incur costs for a task for which the government is precisely responsible,’ said Dagmar Oudshoorn, director of Amnesty International Netherlands.
The Council of State states that hiring traffic controllers is in principle a government task and can only be waived if the mayor can justify why he cannot perform it himself. This is a high test, which the mayor of Maastricht failed to meet at the time. Jelle Klaas of PILP, a lawyer in the case, added: “Nevertheless, we remain of the opinion that it is always a violation of the right to protest if it is imposed on organizers that they have to hire certified traffic controllers. So not only when a mayor has insufficiently justified this requirement.
Unjustified curtailment of demonstration right by Maastricht municipality
In 2017, the local Amnesty group in Maastricht along with a branch of the International Socialists, among others, organized two demonstrations against the impending deportation of an Afghan family. They were imposed several restrictions by the Maastricht municipality that showed that the municipality had not sufficiently understood the fundamental importance of the right to demonstrate. For example, the organizers were prohibited from making offensive statements, flyering during the demonstration, and were required to hire their own certified traffic controllers.
Amnesty International was proven right about the offensive expressions earlier on appeal, and the organization was also proven right about the flyers on appeal to the court. Today, almost 4 years later, the Council of State also ruled in favor of Amnesty International.
Municipalities must facilitate peaceful protest as much as possible
The right to demonstrate is very important for a healthy democratic society. Demonstrating is a right that must be facilitated to the maximum extent.
‘Municipalities should not discourage or even deter people from demonstrating. In recent weeks, too, we have unfortunately had to observe once again that local authority restricts or even prevents peaceful protest too far. This is why Amnesty will continue to work for better safeguards for the right to protest in the Netherlands,” said Dagmar Oudshoorn.
In these court cases, the organizers of the demonstration were assisted by PILP, a human rights litigation organization, and CMS Law.
Learn more about the case, objection and appeal at the Limburg District Court.
