{"id":1085,"date":"2011-11-25T13:11:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-25T18:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1085"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:25:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:25:45","slug":"occupy-the-docket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/11\/25\/occupy-the-docket\/","title":{"rendered":"Occupy the Docket"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"single-post-meta\" style=\"color: #888888\">\n<p><em>Peter Dunne<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>As the Occupy Movement continues to make national headlines,\u00a0the struggle\u00a0to hold America\u2019s \u20181%\u2019 accountable is increasingly being played out through the Federal and State Court Systems.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday,\u00a0a South Carolina State Circuit Judge permitted\u00a0<em>Occupy Columbia<\/em>\u00a0protesters to return\u00a0to the grounds of the State Capitol after attempts by Governor Haley to evict them. This followed Monday\u2019s announcement\u00a0that\u00a0two members of\u00a0<em>Occupy Austin<\/em>\u00a0had filed suit against their City, claiming that\u00a0the use of Criminal Trespass Notices infringed upon free expression, assembly and the right to petition one\u2019s government.<\/p>\n<p>Up and down the country, Courts are being asked to evaluate not only the rights of protesters but also the possible\u00a0actions which police officers can\u00a0take while trying to enforce evictions.<!--more--><span id=\"more-7855\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Of course, many would argue that the\u00a0role of the\u00a0legal system in the \u2018Occupy\u2019 story\u00a0is unsurprising given that, even in the age of alternative dispute resolution, America remains a heavily\u00a0litigious society \u2013 one in which\u00a0First Amendment Rights are\u00a0embedded in the public pysche.<\/p>\n<p>However, even\u00a0outside the United States, the\u00a0various progeny of Occupy Wall Street, which have sprung\u00a0up around the globe, are increasingly finding themselves in Court \u2013 either positively seeking protections or defending against hostile local authorities.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the British Columbia Supreme Court granted\u00a0cfficials an injunction to remove members of\u00a0<em>Occupy Vancouver\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0from the grounds in front of the city\u2019s art gallery. Similarly, on Thursday, the London High Court set\u00a0a date for\u00a0determening\u00a0the legality of the tented city which has developed outside of St Paul\u2019s Cathedral.<\/p>\n<p>The UK case will be particularly interesting as any judgment is likely to consider the extent to which\u00a0<em>Occupy<\/em>Protesters are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). A positive ruling for\u00a0London City Coroporation (the city authorities) may have the effect of\u00a0encouraging\u00a0other European\u00a0officials to adopt harsher measures against the individuals who are currently occupying their cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Dunne As the Occupy Movement continues to make national headlines,\u00a0the struggle\u00a0to hold America\u2019s \u20181%\u2019 accountable is increasingly being played [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-hv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}