The responsible officer can only prohibit a protest if:

1. There are legitimate concerns that the protest will lead to injuries, serious property destruction, or serious disruption to traffic AND;
2. There has been a meeting with the conveners, and all efforts to negotiate a safe gathering have failed AND;
3. The convener gets written reasons for why the gathering can’t go ahead AND;
4. The police or traffic police write an affidavit, swearing on oath that says that they have reasonable grounds to believe that your protest may endanger the safety of protesters or the public, cause bad damage to property, or badly disrupt traffic.

What happens if a gathering is prohibited?

If a gathering has been prohibited and still goes ahead, it will be treated as illegal. Anybody who goes to a prohibited gathering is committing an offence.

But if you believe that your gathering should not have been prohibited, you may approach a Magistrate’s Court or High Court and ask the magistrate or judge to overturn the prohibition and allow the gathering to go ahead.

This is a big challenge because you may need to get legal advice at the last minute. If you find yourself in this situation, contact one of the organisations listed at the back of this booklet to see if they can help.

Rules for ending a Gathering

When a gathering has taken place lawfully, it must disperse at the time that the organisers said it would. At the protest, if the police give an order to disperse, it is an offence to disobey them and you may be arrested or forcefully dispersed. However, the police must obey certain rules when doing this – see Section 2 of this booklet.