Hunting ban faces challenge in courts

CAMPAIGNERS protesting against the coming ban on foxhunting in England and Wales yesterday pledged both to use the law and to break it in order to thwart the government’s plans.

Pro-hunt activists began a legal action hoping to have the new law banning hunting from February declared invalid. At the same time the campaigners warned Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, of a wave of civil disobedience in the months before next year’s general election.

The law to ban hunting next year was passed on Thursday by ministers invoking the 1949 Parliament Act after the House of Lords rejected a government compromise that would have put the ban off until 2006.

The earlier ban came about after a chaotic legislative process that left MPs and peers on all sides angry with the government. Ministers had hoped the delay could have averted all-out confrontation with the hunt lobby in the pre-election period. Yesterday, the Countryside Alliance confirmed it plans an all-out attack on Labour over the coming months.

The first front opened up in the courts. Hunt supporters applied to the Royal Courts of Justice for a judicial review of the passing of the new law.

The court papers argue that the use of the Parliament Act was invalid.

In a separate legal action the campaigners are set to claim that the approaching ban infringes their human rights.