Bid to criminalise freedom of assembly unconstitutional

If street protesting today takes a degree of courage for most, imagine for a minute the degree of madness it took during the 1980s and 1990s to replace the one-party state and introduce democratic freedoms. Like elsewhere in the world, the story of how we won the right to participate in public affairs or act in the public interest cannot be told without street marches, picketing and petitions.

Recently introduced into Parliament, the Public Order (Amendment) Bill of 2019 seeks to fundamentally alter this part of our history for the worse and we must challenge it.