The High Court granted permission last Friday for the legal challenge to the Hunting Act 2004 under the Human Rights Act 1998 to go ahead.

Permission was granted to the individual claimants for application for judicial review of the Hunting Act 2004 on human rights grounds. No date has been set for the preliminary hearing, which will take place at the High Court.

Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart, said: “The Government has rejected the findings of Parliament’s own Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) on two occasions, in 2003 and 2004.

The JCHR found that the Hunting Bill, which became law on 18th February 2005, breached human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. Therefore, it is only right that the application for judicial review of this legislation on human rights grounds has been allowed to go ahead.

‘In their rejection of evidence and principle, the Government and the House of Commons have pushed through a law which transgresses fundamental human rights. We intend to remedy this state of affairs in an arena where evidence is listened to rather than ignored for politically expedient reasons.’