The Weekly Roundup – two important Bills and a new Strasbourg ruling on protest law
29 June 2026
In Parliament
Conversion therapy ban
On Thursday, the Cabinet Office released a Draft Bill that would effectively ban LGBTQ+ ‘abusive conversion practices’ – colloquially known as ‘conversion therapy’ – in England and Wales. In 2022, the previous government also proposed a ban but, significantly, one that would not include protection for transgender people. At the time, that exception was considered to be due to concerns over criminalising exploratory discussions about a person’s gender identity.
The currently proposed legislation, which includes protection for transgender people, would create two new offences. The first would criminalise ‘carrying out an abusive conversion practice on an individual’, with potential prison sentences and unlimited fines in store for those convicted. The second would do likewise where a ‘United Kingdom person’ encourages or assists abusive practices that take place outside of England and Wales.
In cases where an abusive conversion practice is carried out by an organisation or ‘encouraged or assisted’ by one outside the jurisdiction, the proposed legislation would introduce criminal liability for the relevant officer of the organisation.
Alongside this, the proposals also include conferring a new power on the High Court and family court to make ‘conversion practice protection orders’, enabling the prohibition and restriction of the practice.
In response to the publication of the Draft Bill, the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Mary-Ann Stephenson, welcomed the proposals.
However Stephenson went on to say: ‘It is crucial that the legislation is based on clear definitions and boundaries that protect legitimate medical treatment and therapy as well as ensuring people’s rights to freedom of religion and freedom of expression are not disproportionately restricted’.
The charity, Sex Matters, expressed a similar concern regarding definitions in the Draft Bill, characterising the definition in the proposed legislation of ‘conversion practice’ as ‘open-ended and subjective’. Because the proposed ban is trans-inclusive, the charity has expressed fear that instances such as ‘parents telling a child they will not pay for puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones’ would become criminal conduct.
On the other hand, the charity, Stonewall, who have long advocated for a ‘fully inclusive’ ban, labelled the proposal ‘a momentous step forward towards LGBTQ+ equality’ but one that was notably ‘long-overdue’.
Immigration and Asylum changes on the horizon?
In other legislative news, there is speculation that the Government’s new Immigration and Asylum Bill, which was announced earlier this year in the King’s Speech, will be laid before the House of Commons in the upcoming week. However, given Parliament’s summer recess period is due to begin on the 17th of July and that a new PM is likely to be in office by the time Parliament returns in September, it is unclear what the future of such a bill is.
The Government originally announced the intended legislation in the King’s Speech, which would be aimed at significantly changing and tightening the asylum process. In particular, it had outlined plans to restrict the use of Article 8 ECHR claims in immigration appeals, which has attracted considerable criticism from campaign groups. The proposal to limit the operation of Article 8 was also said to include a statutory redefinition of ‘family life’, reducing it to mean a ‘core family unit, such as spouses, parents, and children’. Furthermore, the bill is also supposed to entail the creation of a new ‘independent appeals body’ to hear asylum claims, separate from other immigration appeals and would take over cases retrospectively.
The proposed bill would mark a significant change to human rights law, likely involving a surgical removal of Strasbourg jurisprudence on Article 8. However, the impending turnover of Cabinet roles expected in the next month or so means the timing of its introduction remains uncertain.
In the ECtHR
Karchava v Georgia
On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights handed down judgment in the Case of Karchava v Georgia (App. No. 34790/23, judgment of 23 June 2026).
The facts
The case concerned a protestor in Batumi, Georgia, who was removed from a public area, arrested and subsequently convicted of an administrative offence for refusing to cancel a solo protest he had planned and given notice the authorities notice of. The protest, which concerned the lack of free lunches provided in public schools in Georgia, was due to be held outside the Constitutional Court in Batumi and involved pitching a small tent. The applicant was initially stopped by the police upon erecting the tent on the grounds that his protest would disrupt planned New Year’s celebrations and was too close to a protected monument as well as the Constitutional Court building. Later, in a police interview, Karvacha was repeatedly requested to cancel the protest and was charged with the offence after refusing to do so. He was convicted in the Batumi court and received a reprimand, which was then upheld on appeal.
Decision and reasoning
The Strasbourg Court found that, while the applicant’s removal from the area of protest, arrest and prosecution were interferences with Article 10 (read in the light of Article 11) that pursued a legitimate aim, they were nevertheless not necessary in a democratic society [46-49].
The Court found that the applicant’s specific protest was of heightened public interest and therefore, a particularly good justification was needed for its lawful restriction. The Georgian Government relied on three grounds for doing so: (i) the need to enforce the law concerning the proximity of assemblies to the Court building; (ii) the need to protect a public statue; and (iii) the need to ensure the safety of the applicant from pyrotechnics to be used at the New Year’s celebrations [51].
As regards the first ground, the Court found [52] that because, in domestic judicial proceedings, there had been no reference to that ground, it could not be relied on as a sufficient justification.
On the second ground [53], the Court held that the applicant could not have posed a genuine risk to the statue. It stated that he ‘neither engaged in violent conduct nor displayed any intention to damage, destroy, impair, or even temporarily alter the monument’ [53].
Finally, the Court was not persuaded that the risk of the applicant being affected by pyrotechnics was sufficiently clear [54]. It had not been verified for instance that the area in which the applicant began to set up his tented protest was designated for pyrotechnics.
Separately, the Court found that the sanction would have been disproportionate. It reasoned that the applicant’s removal and arrest, combined with the judicial reprimand resulted in a cumulative sanction and one which had a ‘chilling effect’ on the exercise of his right to freedom of expression [56].
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