The Support Hunting Association is one of the UK's most prominent pro-hunting organisations, now incorporating issues related to Game Shooting, Fox Hunting and Angling.
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Police View of a hunting ban - Two chief constables voice their concern on a ban on hunting.
Timelines -On the current Hunting Bill, the attempts to ban hunting, and on the ban in Scotland.
Hunting vs. Human Rights - Parliament has advised that the Hunting Bill is incompatible with the Human Rights Act.
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Quotes
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The ban has guaranteed that the time and money invested by the League Against Cruel Sports and the RSPCA has increased animal suffering. We told them this would happen. This rise in suffering since the ban is the cost of ignoring that warning!
Daily Telegraph
3 May 2005.
Numerous police officers accompanied the more than 250 hunts which took place yesterday, the first day that the sport became illegal. Despite the friendly exchanges between officers and huntsmen and women, the presence of the police posed a question: what public good were they trying to uphold?
Daily Telegraph
20 February 2005.
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Hunting Bill fails to satisfy Human Rights committee - 26 November 2003
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The Governments Hunting Bill as it stands - banning all forms of hunting whether intentional or not - has failed to receive the approval of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
 The committee found that the bill fell short of the Human Rights Act on two accounts, the issue of banning hunting on private land and that of compensation for those affected.
They asked DEFRA to clarify the issues and are reported to be unsatisfied with the response they received. They are now writing a 'strongly-worded' letter to the government to get the bill re-drafted.
A source revealed to The Times, "The committee’s intervention does not have any effect on the progress of the Bill. All we do is raise questions and report our conclusions to the House . . . in the end it is Parliament’s right to legislate”.
However, if the bill falls short of the HRA in the eyes of this committee it means that the chances of success in overturning the ban in the courts are high.
The original Hunting Bill
The original draft of the bill - as introduced in December last year - poses no problems to the Human Rights Act. The HRC looks at several aspects of a bill:
The right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions.
The committee found that "[the bill] generally struck a fair balance between the public interest and the rights of those whom the Bill would affect"; so they were satisfied.
The Economic Impacts of the bill.
The committee "were likely to be satisfied in view of the fact that, among other considerations, the Bill originally introduced a registration system rather than a ban, and
made provision for transitional arrangements"; so again they were satisfied.
Private Life.
The committee found that in respect of the bill intruding into hunter's private lives, that the bill "serves a legitimate aim, respond to a pressing social need and be proportionate to the object pursued... This was in the context of a less than total prohibition on hunting with dogs."; again they were satisfied that the bill did not contradict the Human Rights Act in this respect
Discrimination.
The committee found that any discrimination within the bill "[is] not based on a personal characteristic and can be justified objectively"
Conclusion.
The committee concluded, "At present, and subject to any
amendments being introduced to the Bill at a later stage, we do not consider that the Bill gives rise to a significant risk of incompatibility with Convention rights".
The Hunting Bill as amended
The Hunting Bill was then amended on 30th June 2003 by Labour MP Tony Banks to ban hunting of all forms of hunting. The committee's final report of the latest session of parliament has concluded that the bill fails to satisfy, in their opinion, the Human Rights Act.
Property Rights
The Committee pointed out that the bill makes illegal any contract that hunts have with their workers, and thus under the Human Rights Act must compensate them.
The original bill allowed hunting to continue under licence, however it was amended by backbench Labour MPs in its report stage on 30th June 2003. They commented. "...we draw to the attention of each House our view of the human rights implications of the absence from the Bill of any compensation scheme, particularly in relation to the deprivation of the benefit of vested rights under contracts already entered into."
Private Life
With respects to Private Life the committee reserved judgement, "The Government considers that hunting with dogs does not engage the right to respect for private life under the Human Rights Act, because its nature is essentially public and it falls outside the meanings given to ‘private life’ by the European Court of Human Rights. In any case, the Government considers that the Bill’s interference with the activities would have been justifiable as being in accordance with the law and, like other animal welfare legislation, necessary in a democratic society for the protection of morals."
Conclusion
"We do not wish to express any concluded view as to whether hunting on one’s own land would be regarded as falling outside the realm of ‘private life’ for the purpose. On the other hand, like the Government, we are satisfied that the interference with that right would be likely to be regarded as justifiable." |
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