A Scottish pro-life activist who faced criminal charges for engaging in a silent protest outside an abortion clinic has had the charges against her dropped amid renewed calls for the abolition of “buffer zone” laws that prohibit pro-life activism near abortion clinics.

In a statement Tuesday, the nonprofit legal organization ADF International announced that a judge in Glasgow, Scotland, had dismissed charges against pro-life activist Rose Docherty.

Docherty was charged last December with violating Scotland's 2024 Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act by holding up a sign outside an abortion clinic that read, “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” Authorities accused her of “influencing” people seeking an abortion within a 200-meter “buffer zone” around a medical facility.

Monday’s ruling in favor of Docherty came a week after her legal counsel argued that the charges violated her rights to free expression under Article 10.

While the judge concluded that the prosecution “failed to disclose an offence known to the law of Scotland” by failing to produce concrete evidence that Docherty actually “influenc[ed]” someone with her activism, he left the door open to revisiting the case if the prosecution presents such evidence.

The charges dismissed against Docherty on Monday stem from her second run-in with law enforcement over her pro-life activism. She was previously arrested in February 2025 for holding the same sign outside an abortion clinic. The charges against her were later dropped.

In a speech delivered outside the courthouse, Docherty expressed gratitude for the “support and prayers” she had received.

“When I was arrested, I was handcuffed, placed in the back of a police van and placed in a police cell for over two hours, without a chair to sit on,” she said, lamenting that “simply for being available for the lonely, the afraid and the coerced, I have been treated like a violent criminal.”

“This verdict is a major victory for free speech in Scotland and the U.K.,” Docherty said in a separate reaction to Monday’s ruling. “It shows that peacefully offering consensual conversation on a public street, which is all I have ever done, can never be a crime.”

Docherty said that despite the verdict, the "process in this case became a form of punishment for me." She claims that her case is an example of how "buffer zone" laws are "used by authorities to impose censorship."

"I was arrested last September and have faced seven months of criminal proceedings, merely for expressing my free speech rights," she said. "This should never happen in a free society.”

"'Buffer zone' legislation must be repealed in Scotland and across the U.K. to ensure it is not misused to target peaceful and lawful expression again in the future, as has now happened to me twice," Docherty said. "The resources used by the authorities to target me, a 75-year-old grandmother, for offering to speak with people, have been totally wasted. Authorities should focus on tackling real crime in Glasgow, not censoring a Catholic grandmother." 

ADF barrister and legal counsel Jeremiah Igunnubole said the U.K. has faced a "deepening free speech crisis."

“It is bad enough to be prosecuted for exercising a fundamental right; it is far worse that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service brought these charges without conducting even the most basic investigative inquiries, such as establishing whether anyone had been criminally influenced by Rose’s conduct within the ‘buffer zone,’” Ingunnubole said.

Denouncing “buffer zone” laws as “poorly drafted, censorial, and undemocratic,” Igunnubole said they “have created confusion for police officers and delivered injustice." He called on the Scottish Parliament to “act urgently to repeal these buffer zone laws and replace them with robust protections that genuinely strengthen freedom of expression.”

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