Law Weblog

A further round in the Hunting Act saga is lost….

Sunday 7 August 2005 at 12:12 pm | In News | Post Comment

R (Countryside Alliance and others) v HM Attorney General and another (2005) AC
Pro-hunting campaigners sought to have the Hunting Act 2004 declared incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1988. Also, that the court should declare by virtue of the European Communities Act 1972 that the Hunting Act offends European Community law and disapply which they could do by virtue of Case 106/77 Simmenthal [1978].

Held: It was within the rational, proportionate and democratic competence of Parliament to enact the Hunting Act 2004 and the court should not intervene.

No order made
Comment: Their Lordships were presented with 32 lever arch files of immaculately prepared evidence, 4 mini bundles of “essential reading”, 6 files of necessary and appropriate witness statements, one file of experts’ reports and 25 files of exhibits to witness statements, almost all of which they did not read. This is because the proceedings were by way of Judicial Review and not fact finding. They said that the court had to pick its way through a mass of dense undergrowth cultivated by human rights and European legislation and jurisprudence, it often being hard to see the overgrown wood for the trees.
Whole case here