Lawyers for 16 climate activists invoked the philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Henry David Thoreau in the Court of Appeal on Wednesday as they sought to quash long sentences for acts of civil disobedience. The appellants, convicted in separate trials last year, argued that judges had defied decades of precedent by ignoring their conscientious motives.
The sentences ranged from 15 months to five years for protests in 2022 as part of the Just Stop Oil campaign. Among the appellants were Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, who received five years for planning roadblock protests on the M25; Larch Maxey, sentenced to three years for tunnelling beneath a road to an Essex oil refinery; and Phoebe Plummer, imprisoned for two years for throwing soup on Van Gogh's Sunflowers at the National Gallery.
Danny Friedman KC, representing the appellants, said the sentences were 'the highest of their kind in modern British history' and, if allowed to stand, would constitute a 'paradigm shift' in criminal law. The court was told that no reduction had been made for the protesters' conscientious motivation, contrary to common law and articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In court filings, lawyers cited Thoreau's 1849 essay on civil disobedience and Arendt's view that civil disobedience arises when citizens believe normal channels of change no longer function. Friedman told the court the appellants 'did what they did out of sacrifice' for the public interest and future generations.
The appeal was heard by Lady Justice Carr, who in 2022 denied an appeal by other Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, whose sentences were then the longest for non-violent civil disobedience. At that time, she said the sentences were not manifestly excessive and served to deter similar offences.
