SUPPORTERS of hunting with dogs today began a bid to convince three of the country's top judges that the Act of Parliament which will outlaw their sport is not valid.
The Countryside Alliance is challenging the validity of the 1949 Parliament Act, which MPs used in the House of Commons to introduce the Hunting Act because of opposition from the House of Lords.
The centuries-old sport will be banned when the Hunting Act takes effect on February 19 unless the appeal judges rule the legislation flawed and unenforceable.
Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice who heads the panel of three judges, said at the start of the case today that this was the first time that the Parliament Act had been challenged at the Court of Appeal.
Sir Sydney Kentridge QC, representing three hunt supporters funded by the Countryside Alliance, said the 1949 Act had changed the conditions of the original 1911 Act to give more powers to the House of Commons and reduce the powers of the House of Lords.
But the original Act said this could only be done with the consent of all of Parliament and the House of Lords had not agreed to the 1949 changes.
"That is why we say the Parliament Act of 1949 is not an Act of Parliament and is unlawful and the Hunting Act falls with that Act."
Unlawful
The Hunting Act, which was forced through last November amid a storm of cheers and jeers, will not only end fox-hunting but also deer-hunting and hare-coursing with dogs.
The Alliance is appealing against a High Court ruling on January 28, in which Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Mr Justice Collins said it was clear that the 1949 Act was valid and the proposed hunting ban lawful.
Commons Speaker Michael Martin invoked the Parliament Act for only the fourth time in 55 years to get the new law in place.
He intervened after peers rejected a final opportunity for compromise with MPs by voting down a proposal to delay the ban until July 2006.
Today's appeal is being heard by Lord Woolf, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, and Lord Justice May.
The Alliance case marks the start of what could be a barrage of legal attempts, including one planned under the Human Rights Act, to overturn the ban.
Today's appeal is being brought in the names of John Jackson, chairman of the Countryside Alliance, Patrick Martin, huntsman of the Bicester with Whaddon Chase Hunt in Oxfordshire, and Mair Hughes, 46, from Gilfach Goch, Mid Glamorgan, wife of the Master of the Llangeinor Hunt, who is also a farrier.
Mrs Hughes, 46, said her job as bookkeeper to the farriery is in danger from the ban, as well as her social life.
The League Against Cruel Sports will put forward its own arguments at the Court of Appeal opposing the pro-hunt challenge.
Should hunting have been banned? Have your say.
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loads of people have been made redundant from various jobs and people find a way of coping with it. there are other jobs out there that will enable these people to use their skills and probably for a lot more money. This is no reason to let fox hunting carry on. these people have no respect for animals and would drive them to extinction if it was up to them. its a game they are playing and they're throwing their toys out of the pram because they have lost their game.
The hunting ban is clearly bad law. More animals have been killed by motorists than all the foxes killed by huntsmen over the centuries. Why are not the animal rights activists campaigning to have motoring banned. Could it be that they are motorists? The anti-hunt lobby is nothing more than the envy of the masses and nothing to do with animal rights. The true nature of these activists has been seen from the recent destruction of fences and gates. Vandalism is, I believe, a common pastime of urban dwellers.
I have never been fox-hunting.
I have no intention of ever going fox-hunting. I could not
care less if fox-hunting ceased to exist overnight in this country. However, if there are
some simple-minded yokels
out there in the sticks who
cannot think of anything better
to do than to go tally-hoing
around the countryside, chasing after an elusive species of vermin, then let them get on with it, say I, and
don't bother me with your
working-class hangups.
Hunts kill less than 1% of the
fox population every year,
which leaves 99% to wreak
enormous damage on the
nation's farming economy.
Fanatical opponents of fox-
hunting, such as the Labour party in the House of Commons, should get their
priorities right before deciding
to enforce such a daft law.