Public Meeting - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition public-meeting

Definition :

Public meeting, a meeting which any person may attend. Any number of persons may meet in any place for any lawful purpose with the consent of the owner of that place; but without such consent, and in any case in the public streets, which are lawfully used for the purpose of passing and repassing only (see the ruling of Charles, J., in the Trafalgar Square case in 1887, and Ex parte Lewis, (1888) 21 QBD 191), there is no 'right of public meeting' known to English law.

Political meetings within a mile of Westminster Hall during the session of Parliament are prohibited by the Seditious Meetings Act, 1817. As a result of disturbances created by persons advocating the extension of the parliamentary franchise to women there was passed the Public Meeting Act, 1908, which by s. 1 provides as follows:-

1.-(1) Any person who at a lawful public meeting acts in a disorderly manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the meeting was called together shall be guilty of an offence, and, if the offence is committed at a political meeting held in any parliamentary constituency between the date of the issue of a writ for the return of a member of Parliament for such constituency and the date of which a return to such writ is made, he shall be guilty of an illegal practice within the meaning of the (English) Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1883, and in any other case shall, on summary conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding five pounds, or to imprisonment not exceeding one month.

(2) Any person who incites others to commit an offence under this section shall be guilty of a like offence.

(And as amended by the Public Order Act, 1936, s. 6).

(3) If any constable reasonably suspects any person of committing an offence under the foregoing provisions of this section, he may if requested so to do by the chairman of the meeting, require that person to declare to him immediately his name and address and, if that person refuses or fails so to declare his name and address or gives a false name and address he shall be guilty of an offence under this sub-section and liable on summary conviction thereof to a fine not exceeding forty shillings, and if he refuses or fails to declare his name and address or if the constable reasonably suspects him of giving a false name and address, the constable may without warrant arrest him.

Newspaper reports of public meetings (unless such report or publication was published or made maliciously) are 'privileged' (see LIBEL) by the (English) Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1888, which, for the purposes of that Act, defines a public meeting as

'Any meeting bona fide and lawfully held for a lawful purpose, and for the furtherance and discussion of any matter of public concern, whether the admission thereto be general or restricted.'

Consult Odgers on Libel.

As to public meetings of limited bodies, see MEET-ING. Consult Crewe, Procedure at Pub. And Co. Meetings.

Means a meeting which is open to the public or any class or portion of the public. [(English) Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act, 1911, s. 2 (1)]