197_34 substantive_scope 34. <6> On 25 October 2005 the first applicant, of which nearly 9,000 policemen were members at that time, organised a public meeting in one of the main squares in Bratislava. Its aim was to protest against envisaged legislative amendments concerning the social security of policemen and their low remuneration. In its course the participants spontaneously shouted, inter alia, that the Government should step down. One of the banners displayed by the participants read “If the State doesn’t pay a policeman, the mafia will do so with pleasure”.