Meet Katy Watts, a Solicitor at Liberty (National Council for Civil Liberties), where she works on protests, technology, surveillance and data rights law. In this episode, Katy explained her landmark legal case against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, as well as her work to protect human rights law in the UK.  

So why should you be listening in?  

You can hear Rob and Katy discussing: 

• Katy’s motivation for getting into human rights law 

• Liberty’s legal work 

• Katy’s win against the UK government  

• Legislation around free speech and protest rights  
• Advice for aspiring human rights lawyers 

Transcript

Rob Hanna 00:00 

Welcome to the legally speaking podcast. I’m your host Rob Hanna. This week I’m delighted to be joined by Katy Watts. Katy is a solicitor at the human rights organisation Liberty, Katy leads its legal work on protests and works across technology, surveillance and data rights. Katy has been leading the case against the Home Secretary over protest laws. Before joining Liberty in 2020, Katy worked at a leading public law NGO, and the Public Law Project where she specialised in strategic judicial review litigation concerning access to justice, and migrants rights. So a very big warm welcome, Katy.  

Katy Watts 00:38 

Hey, Rob, very glad to be here. 

Rob Hanna 00:39 

Oh, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show. Before we dive into all your amazing projects and experience to date, we do have a customer icebreaker question here on the legally speaking podcast, which is on the scale of one to 1010 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series suits in terms of its reality of the law? If you’ve seen it? So with that, we’re gonna give it a quick zero and move swiftly on to talk all about you. So to begin with, Katy, would you mind telling our listeners a bit more about your background and career journey? 

Katy Watts 01:10 

Yeah, sure. Well, as you said at the outset, I’m a solicitor at Liberty, which is a human rights organisation. And before that, I worked at the Public Law Project, which is another NGO. So in lots of ways, it’s been quite an unusual career journey in that I’ve never been a solicitor in private practice, I’ve always worked in the NGO sector, trained and qualified at the Public Law Project, as well as working there for four years post qualification. And before that, I worked in the NGO sector as a as a non lawyer. So it’s a bit of an unusual journey. I didn’t go down the kind of traditional training contract route. 

Rob Hanna 01:43 

Yeah. And we’d like people with different backgrounds. And it also opens people’s eyes to different routes into the law as well, which I think is great. But talk us through some of your sort of motivations. What motivated you specifically to pursue a career in human rights, justice and migrants rights? 

Katy Watts 01:58 

And so good question. I think so I studied politics as an undergraduate, and I looked at law. When I was coming to the end of my undergraduate degree as something that felt like perhaps a kind of natural career move, it sort of fits quite well, politics and the law often go together. And I sort of had an idea then that I wanted to do something that would be sort of practically useful, I suppose. And so I did do a conversion immediately after my undergraduate degree. And I felt extremely off putting, I really didn’t enjoy it at all. And part of the reason for that, I think, was was not so much the kind of content of the looking version, but just the sort of narrowness, I guess, of the kind of careers that I that I was able to find out about. Through that experience, it felt very geared towards funnelling students towards careers, the sort of corporate end of the legal profession. So magic circle firms, commercial firms, and I kind of looked into those kinds of training contracts, it really didn’t feel like it was for me, it felt much harder to access information about like, what other kinds of legal careers might look like. And so I ended up not pursuing law at the end of that process. I kind of opted out of a legal career, I didn’t think it was necessarily forever. But I went and did a variety of different different jobs working for kind of charities, including the British Red class where I worked with refugees and migrants, and a social justice charity called Toynbee Hall. And it was through doing that kind of work in the like charity and NGO sector, where I felt very at home. But I also started to be exposed to lawyers who were practising in those fields through lawyers who came and volunteered at projects I was working on. Or just often, especially with the work of the Red Cross, we would often need to refer service users to lawyers to take up their cases when they were experiencing kind of really significant legal problems. And so that really opened my eyes to the kinds of firms that were doing the work that I was interested in. And the kind of legal career that I had sort of initially imagined when I when I thought about doing a law conversion, and that just felt much more suited to what I wanted to do. Then there’s kind of commercial farms and commercial training contracts that had been the focus, I guess, at the careers advice, I’d had an earlier point. 

Rob Hanna 04:39 

And there’s a really good nugget in there, the sort of, you know, you really put deep thought into your career ahead of your years and what matters to you and your values, and you’ve stood to them. And obviously the results that you’ve had a wonderfully successful career probably full of fulfilment, rather than this is the 10 the traditional path you should potentially think about going and actually it isn’t quite in the back of Your Mind what you really want. So I think that’s really good. You know, a case study there for people to follow who might be feeling like, oh, this seems to be the only option, actually, there’s so many different options. And that’s why we do this show to kind of open people’s eyes to if you want something in and around the law, there probably is something for almost everybody. So let’s dive in a little bit more about some of your past experience. Because whilst at the Public Law NGO, and also the Public Law Project, what type of work were you getting involved with? 

Katy Watts 05:24 

So I was really lucky, and that the public law projects, just at the time that I was starting to think that maybe I would look for training contracts again, and was looking at the kinds of firms that specialised in the areas of law that I wanted to practice in the puppet Law Project, had some funding to offer a training contract through a scheme called the Justice first fellowship was about 10 years ago now. And so I uploaded a training contract, there was the first trainee they’d ever had, and serve as a real variety of work. I mean, in many ways, it was quite narrow, because it was very focused on public law. But it was back in 2014 15, there were lots of challenges to huge cuts to legal aid provision, and the Public Law Project was engaging in a lot of kind of very strategic targeted litigation, trying to mitigate the worst effects of those cuts on access to justice. And so the first few years that I was at the Public Law Project, both during my training contract, and afterwards, my work really focused on bringing quite high level strategic litigation all the way up to the Supreme Court, challenging various different cuts around access to legal aid, including cuts, which would have affected victims of domestic violence cuts, which would have excluded people who could not prove lawful residence in the UK, and various other types of cases from being able to access legal aid. And so that was very, I guess, important in the experience that I got of bringing very targeted, thoughtful strategic litigation in the public good, which is, I suppose what I’ve kind of continued to do for the rest of my career. 

Rob Hanna 07:08 

Yeah. And I’m very well done. So along your journey, as well. So to the present day, you’re now a solicitor at Liberty, what is Liberty stand for?  

Katy Watts 07:17 

Liberty is a campaigning human rights organisation. We celebrated our 90th anniversary this year. So we’ve been around a long time, and we were founded in 1934, to protect the right to protest. And that’s still one of our core kind of functions. I mean, we work across a lot of different areas. Now, it’s, we’re not just a protest organisation, we try to kind of defend people’s rights and stand up to power. And we do that not just through through the legal team. So I think people are often surprised if they’ve heard of Liberty to know that we have a legal team of just four lawyers. So it’s a very small legal team within the kind of context of the organisation. We also have, you know, we do campaigning and lobbying and policy work. I think one of the things that’s been interesting for me about working at Liberty is, I suppose it’s more of an in house role in lots of ways your legal team is a small cog in a much bigger machine. And so our legal work focuses on various different things. As you said in your intro, I work on protests, I also work on technologies, valence and my colleagues work across issues like discriminatory policing practices, and the criminalization of poverty and homelessness. But as I said, Yeah, my work mainly focuses on protest rates. And over the last four years, we’ve seen huge, huge amounts of legislation which have targeted people’s right to protest and to stand up for what they believe in. And so that’s been a real focus of our work is thinking about how to challenge that legislation in a strategic way to protect people’s rights. 

Rob Hanna 08:55 

Yeah, no. And thank you for giving such context around that. And obviously, it’s much very important work that you’re that you’re doing. This might be quite a hard one to pin down. But what’s been the most rewarding aspects of the work you’ve been doing at Liberty?  

Katy Watts 09:08 

Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, lots of it is very rewarding. I think one of the things that I find most rewarding about working in Liberty, as I said, in some ways, it’s challenging to be a lawyer and an organisation which is not primarily a legal organisation, because you are kind of, as I said, a small cog in a much bigger machine. But the the kind of benefits of that are also huge because I get to work with colleagues who have expertise in different disciplines, real policy, expertise, campaigning expertise, and also work not just with my own colleagues, but with organisations who are kind of on the front line of working on some of these issues. And so one of the really rewarding things I think about working with Liberty is working with grassroots organisations, working with campaigners with activists, with community led groups and kind of Trying to build, as I said, sort of a strategic legal response to issues that we care about. So it’s not just about bringing cases which Liberty wants to bring, we try to take a very sort of thoughtful and considered approach and try to work with other organisations and also working, as I said, with with my colleagues and the policy team to develop sort of legal strategies to think about how we can best tackle issues that we care about.  

Rob Hanna 10:29 

Yeah. And again, I can just hear the passion in your voice and, you know, the dedication to your profession. And I think it’s very, you know, it’s very, it’s nice to hear, because I think a lot of people, as I said before, perhaps go into a career go into a job, and it’s very much that but for you, I can, I can really sense that this is so much more than that more than a job. And obviously, everything that you fight for, and everything you do is truly, truly outstanding. And I guess that leads nicely on to the case, you’ve been leading against the Home Secretary over the protest law that, you know, we’ve been kind of touching on. So would you mind for our listeners who may be less aware outlining the facts and the issues of the case, please?  

Katy Watts 11:05 

Yes, I mean, as I said, the last four years seemed huge swathes of new legislation designed to kind of limit limit protests, right. So from creating new criminal offences to broadening police powers to limit protests. So this case arose. Well, in 2021, the government laid a new a new bill, the police crime, sentencing and quotes bill as it was then and we spotted right right back then a provision in that bill, which would give the Home Secretary the power by secondary legislation at a later date to amend the definition of serious disruption in existing legislation, which is relevant to when the police can impose conditions on protests. And at the time, working with colleagues and the policy team. We were concerned that this was a very broad Henry the eighth power. So Henry, the eighth powers is a power contained in primary legislation that allows you to amend it later by way of secondary legislation. And they genuinely generally should be used sparingly and are often quite sort of concerning way of the executive sort of handing itself powers to us later. So back in 2020, won’t we sort of plopped that I made a note for the Secretary of State ever seeks to use this power to amend what is meant by serious disruption, we should look at whether or not that’s been done lawfully within the scope of this power. So then fast forward a couple of years to 2023. And the government, slightly oddly initially did not use that power it had given itself it tried to amend the definition of serious disruption. By way of primary legislation in a new bill, the Public Order bills It was then and failed to get that through the Lord’s because the Lords were concerned that lowering what they tried to do was to find serious disruption is any more than minor impact and the Lord’s were concerned about that change. So failed in the Lord’s, which point they knew that they had a power, the 2021 power, and they tried to lower the definition of serious disruption to there’s more than minor definition, which would enable the police to place controls place limits on protests, where they reasonably believed that there would be any more than minor impact rather than disruption, which was serious. So at that point, we were concerned. Well, for two reasons. First of all, that seemed to go beyond the scope of the enabling power to define serious, as I said, it really lowered the threshold rather than defining it. And secondly, we were concerned that the kind of way in which they had gone about doing it we we understand or understood that it was the first time that a government had ever tried to do something by secondary legislation that it had failed to do by Prime Minister decision. And we were concerned that not only was that unconstitutional, but that that was potentially unlawful to undermine Parliament’s Well, in that way. That formed the basis of our first three grounds in the case, we also challenged the exercise of that power on a fourth round, which was that they had failed to fairly consult on the changes because the government had carried out a consultation at number 10 With with various policing bodies, but had failed to consult protest groups about what that change of definition would mean for the right to protest. So we challenged the exercise of that power on all of those grounds. 

Rob Hanna 14:44 

Yeah, and again, a tremendous amount of work would have gone into that, I’m sure. And on Tuesday, I believe the 21st of May 2024. The judgement was handed down and Liberty called the ruling a huge victory for democracy. So What was the judgement and the outcome? 

Katy Watts 15:01 

So the judgement and the outcome was that the court found that the regulations which changed the definition of serious disruption to define serious disruption has any more than minor impact were unlawful. And so that is we, you know, a huge success. For us. The judgement found the regulations going off on two bases, two rounds. So on ground one, which was a sort of straightforward Ultra vires ground that the Home Secretary, the enabling power, which gave the Home Secretary power at a later date to find serious disruption only enabled her it was sort of robbing at the time to to define it and what she had gone, done, sorry, it was going much further than that, and lower the threshold and that by changing the definition of serious disruption to more than minor that was was Ultra vires in Indian power, because it was not defining it was not clarifying what those words meant it was lowering the threshold, which gave greater power to the police and so that was unlawful. And the court also found that the consultation had been carried out unfairly. Well, first of all, it found that it had been a consultation. Interestingly, when the regulations were first published, the government themselves referred to a consultation that had taken place following production correspondence. The published, explanatory notes were amended, and the word consultation was removed. The government sort of tried to maintain that it had been in sort of targeted engagement with stakeholders rather than a consultation, to which standards of fairness attached themselves. So the court in the judgement found that actually it had undertaken a consultation, and that because it had undertaken a voluntary consultation, you know, that had to be had to have been carried out fairly, and that the consultation that they had undertaken was was one sided and therefore, not fair and therefore unlawful. So the court quashed the regulations. But following submissions for both parties, the Court made a suspended quashing order. So although the regulations are quashed the effect of that Cushing is suspended, pending appeal by the Secretary of State for the home department.  

Rob Hanna 17:24 

Yeah, no, it’s fascinating stuff. And I want to kind of dive a little bit deeper into this because I’m in a Liberty article, and it flows nicely from what you were just saying, says court fines government anti protest legislation unlawful after Liberty legal challenge you state in recent years, the government has introduced a whole host of new laws, which have tried to stop people from being able to speak up for what they believe in. So how have these laws affected people’s ability to organise and participate in protests? 

Katy Watts 17:53 

I would say that there have been two main impacts from the new laws which have been introduced. The first is handing the police greater powers to place limits on police controls and protests. As I said, that’s that’s what our case was about, was about trying to ensure that the threshold at which police can interfere in protests was was not lowered further. But there are other ways in which the police have been handed greater powers, for example, to control static demos, rather than just marches in power to place limits on those as well. But their new legislation has also introduced a range of new criminal offences. And I think one of the notable examples is that as the events of unlocking or being equipped to lock on, which isn’t defence, which comprises of attaching yourself or an object to another object to another person to land, and that was used to arrest anti monarchy protesters at the coronation last year, you had arrived for their protest with their placards zip tied together and the existence of those zip ties, was apparently being equipped to to lock on. So we’ve seen these really kind of broad concerning offences, which I think can be used by the police, potentially terrorists and criminals, protesters. But I think it’s also created an atmosphere really of uncertainty about what the law is regarding protests, because as well as the introduction of all of these new laws, there’s been a huge amount of rhetoric from the government and from the police around protests. I think what that has led to you is uncertainty by people about, you know, to what extent protest is lawful, what kinds of protest defences, there are, whether they may be criminalised for attending a protest, and that that’s really concerning.  

Rob Hanna 19:44 

Yeah, it is. And that again, leads to what I was going to want to find out a little bit more from you on how these laws conflict with existing human rights protections in the UK. 

Katy Watts 19:54 

So I think that was something that we’ve been thinking about over the last few years. As each of these new pieces of legislation is introduced to Parliament, and part of my job as a lawyer within a campaign and human rights organisation is to look at new legislation and think about whether or not it’s compatible with with existing human rights protections and in particularly with articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The kind of conclusion that we come to have come to is that a lot of the kind of you know, when it comes to the crunch isn’t is how those laws are used by the police. So creating new criminal offences per se does not necessarily breach articles. 1011 of the Human Rights Act as the European conventions are incorporated both Human Rights Act, but if they are used in a disproportionate way by the police to criminalise protesters who are exercising their right to free expression, then the exercise of those powers may well conflict with human rights thought. And it is likely I think, that people are being criminalised in ways which engage in potentially breach their their right to protest. You’ve also seen this with things like the toppling of the constant statue in Bristol, those protesters relied on their human rights in defence of the charges of criminal damage, and we’re successful in in being acquitted. And what happened after that was the then attorney general sort of admin referred that case to the court of appeal to try to limit the scope of what we call human rights defences. So relying on your human rights in defence in criminal proceedings, and so as well as new legislation, which which creates new criminal offences gives the police greater powers to interfere in protests, we’re also seeing kind of slowly introduced sort of creeping in of limits on on how people can rely on their human rights in in criminal proceedings, through cases like the cost and for the Attorney General’s reference. 

Rob Hanna 22:15 

Yeah, no interesting, again, Thanksgiving, lots of you know, case studies, and a lot of people will be able to kind of think back to and, you know, understand, let’s look forward, then what potential changes or reforms would you like to see to ensure protection of free speech and protest rights in the UK? 

Katy Watts 22:32 

I think one thing that I’m particularly concerned about is you’ve you’ve just used the language of free speech. In the UK, we have the right to free expression under Article 10, of the human of the European Convention on Human Rights. And I think it’s really important to remember that expressive acts can also be answered protest and also attract the protection of human rights law. And I was just talking about the cost and for that act of tearing down that statue of the offensive slave trader. And I think what we’re seeing at the moment really is a narrowing of what we understand by free expression to kind of a more pure free speech interpretation. And one thing that I would like to see is to kind of hold the line or even expand what we understand as free expression to, to not just speech, but also to to those expressive acts, acts of protest, you know, which might encompass behaviour and actions beyond speech, I think we would also like to see a lot of the legislation that has come into force over the last four, four years reversed. As I’ve said, part of the problem is how that legislation is used by the police how those powers are used. But I think also, as I’ve said, it has created an atmosphere of uncertainty for protesters. And I think that a sort of strong signal that protest rights are respected, and that people do have the right to demonstrate and to make their voices heard on issues that they believe in, you know, is very important, and that the reversal of some of the more draconian measures that have been introduced over the last few years, some of the new criminal offences, some of the new powers to play civil orders on protesters, which kind of prevent them from engaging in protests, moves to reverse those would I think, send a very strong signal. 

Rob Hanna 24:33 

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess a couple of final questions then, and we’ve kind of touched on this, but I’d love to get your sort of individual perspective. You know, what, do you envisage the future of human rights in the UK and what role do you hope to play in that future? 

Katy Watts 24:49 

I mean, I hope to see a world in which human rights are respected by the government, by the state by, you know, local authorities, by all public by phase and you know, a society in which everyone’s rights are respected, and everyone is kind of free to live. Without those rights being interfered with, I think an ideal world is one in which Liberty is not needed to help people, you know, not needed to ensure that people are able to stand up for their rights, we’re not needed to act in cases where those rights have been infringed. And I think an aspiration as well for us is not just to see the rights that we currently have respected, but to broaden the scope of what we understand by human rights, which are kind of currently framed in quite a sort of almost quite an old fashion framework, you know, the European Convention dates to the 50s, it was very much formulated in a post war, Cold War era when we were thinking about rights in terms of like that right to be free from surveillance by the state, you know, the right to privacy, those kinds of freedoms. And I think that in 2024, we should maybe be imagining our rights as extending a bit beyond those kinds of negative and various interferences from the state and thinking about well, what about a right to a home? What about a right to kind of economic security a right to health? I think a really positive way of thinking about human rights to the future would be not just thinking about a life free from interference by the state, but about the the right to kind of live a secure and happy life.  

Rob Hanna 26:34 

Yeah. And we all obviously want to be to be happy at the end of the day. So finally, what advice would you give to young lawyers and activists aspiring to work in human rights?  

Katy Watts 26:45 

As I said, my career is a bit unusual. I spent several years working in the NGO sector at the outset. And I would say that it can feel very discouraging. I think the legal profession is obviously highly competitive in lots of different areas. I think the Human Rights sector can feel particularly competitive, there are fewer jobs, perhaps and then in other areas, and I think it can feel hard to access. And it can often feel to students and young people, particularly people that I meet now who kind of have questions about how to access this kind of career. And you know, that there’s a need to undertake a lot of work experience to undertake unpaid internships, and that that can feel very discouraging. I mean, what I would say is, I was very lucky, the work experience that I did have absolutely helped me get that training contract. But that also doesn’t have to look like certainly doesn’t have to look like unpaid internships or getting lots of work experience, but kind of, you know, a commitment to activism and commitment to human rights, a commitment to, you know, wanting to work on these kinds of issues is the most important thing, when you’re trying to demonstrate to those funds to do this work, that you really care about these issues. And that’s why you want to learn human rights law.  

Rob Hanna 28:05 

Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve got that loud and clear through this episode for the pleasure of interviewing you today. And I’m sure our listeners would like to learn more about your career at Liberty, where can they go to find out more? Feel free to share any social media handles or any websites? We’ll also share them with this episode for you too. 

Katy Watts 28:21 

Yeah, sure. I mean, I’m always happy. My Twitter DMS are open and I’m always happy to talk to aspiring lawyers and law students about my career and give tips if I can. So yeah, Katy, who on Twitter.  

Rob Hanna 28:33 

There you go, folks. Well, Katy, it’s been an absolute pleasure hosting you on the legally speaking podcast, learning lots more about your careers and the tremendous work that you are doing and human rights. But for now, from all of us on the legally speaking podcast, wishing you lots of continued success with your career, but over and out.