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Scotland’s
new hunting bill
‘a shambles’ say pro-hunters
The
Countryside Alliance last week condemned as ‘a shambles’
the attempt by the Scottish Parliament to criminalise hunting
in Scotland. The Chairman of the Countryside Alliance Campaign
for Hunting, Sam Butler, said “This result merely confirms
what we already knew - that the bill is a disreputable shambles”.
He continued, “It is not clear what the bill does. But
what is clear is that the bill is a vindictive and shoddy piece
of legislation which needlessly declares war on decent, hard-working
people and seeks to put many of them out of work without a penny
of compensation”.
Protest
Mr.
Butler said, “This attempted infringement of human freedoms
will be challenged in the Scottish courts as incompatible
with the European Convention of Human Rights now enshrined
in Scottish law”. He called on all in the UK who care
about civil liberty and tolerance to raise their voices in
protest to help safeguard the freedoms of the Scottish people.
Alliance Chief Executive Richard Burge, echoing Mr. Butler’s
criticisms this evening, said the bill proved the folly of
trying to create legislation based on personal moral value
judgments. “This bill’s sponsors long ago abandoned
any pretence that it was about animal welfare”, he said.
“The bill is now revealed as a blatant attempt to seek
to interfere with human thought and behaviour. Competent politicians
should know better than to try to frame legislation that merely
seeks to impose their own personal opinion on the community
- and especially on cultural minorities. That is why this
bill was destined from the first to be an unworkable mess
- and the lesson should not be lost on politicians beyond
Scotland”.
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