Injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance (IPNAs) are set to replace a number of civil orders and injunctions, namely the Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO), the Anti-Social Behaviour Injunction, the Individual Support Order and the Intervention Order. In previous issues of FRFI we have reported on the use of ASBOs as a means of repressing the working class.
The terms set out for IPNAs under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill presented to Parliament earlier this year extend and broaden the powers already available under anti-social behaviour laws, introducing a broader definition of Anti-Social Behaviour; a lower standard of proof; increased sanctions; and increased duration of penalties.
While ‘anti-social behaviour’ is currently a criminal offence, IPNAs will be used as a civil penalty. This enables a lowering of the standard of proof for the triggering of an offence from the criminal standard ’beyond reasonable doubt’ to the civil standard ‘balance of probabilities’. Liberty, the civil liberties organisation, has pointed out that ‘Clearly unhappy with [the current] test, the government is now seeking to lower the burden of proof to allow an injunction to be imposed where there is relatively little evidence of past or threatened anti-social behaviour.’ IPNAs also allow hearsay to be admitted as evidence.
The lower trigger threshold for IPNAs would mean that even if there were no actual ‘nuisance or annoyance’ someone could be accused of ‘conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person’. Imposition of the injunction would no longer need to be ‘necessary’, merely ‘just and convenient’, meaning that all that is required of those that can apply for the imposition of IPNAs (a chief constable, local authority, provider of social housing, the Environment Agency, the Special Health Authority and ‘other bodies’) is that they claim the target of the injunction to be ‘capable of causing’ a nuisance.
The duration of these injunctions can be unlimited, and a breach of an IPNA could result in two years’ imprisonment or an unlimited fine. While an IPNA itself is not a criminal penalty, the bill gives courts the power to use criminal type powers to punish breaches of them as ‘criminal contempt of court’. In the parliamentary publication on the draft bill, it was admitted that unlimited duration would increase the likelihood of breaches of IPNA conditions.
Undoubtedly, the current draft bill will undergo amendments, some of which will probably reduce these sweeping powers; however, whatever its final form, the core purpose of IPNAs is to broaden the powers of the British state. In the context of a major capitalist crisis, and austerity measures that face the working-class, the state is refining its tools of repression and social control.
For further information see:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/836/83605.htm
Duban Minh
