Harassment lawyer questions need to create new statutory framework
Government proposals to introduce statutory injunctions for anti-social behaviour are “flawed” and “either illogical or lack jurisprudential merit”, a solicitor-advocate has warned.
The proposals are set out in Pt 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, currently before Parliament.
Writing in this week’s NLJ, Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, who specialises in harassment law, says powers to make civil injunctions already exist in statute and common law, and questions why it is necessary to create a new statutory framework.
Moreover, the Bill introduces “unprecedented” powers for a third party, a statutory authority, to intervene in a dispute between two parties by launching civil proceedings.
He suggests that the use of the term “annoyance” in the Bill’s definition of anti-social behaviour (ASB) “appears to be intent on creating a low threshold upon which to found injunctive relief”.
The Bill defines ASB as “conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person”.
The “classic” definition of ASB is behaviour “in a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons” (the Crime and Disorder Act 1998).
Lawson-Cruttenden says: “Having settled the law of harassment, and having created a sub-tort of ASB and a sub-culture of ASBOs it seems entirely inappropriate now to seek to create a statutory tort of anti-social behaviour.”
He suggests that, “if Parliament wishes to revisit the issue of ASBOs, then it is suggested that the proper way to do this is by amending s 1 of the 1998 Act”.
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