Fox hunters mount constitutional challenge in British high court News
Fox hunters mount constitutional challenge in British high court

[JURIST] The pro-hunting Countryside Alliance [advocacy website] Wednesday challenged Britain's recent ban on fox hunting with dogs [JURIST report] in the House of Lords Wednesday by questioning the Parliament Act [Wikipedia backgrounder' UK Parliament research paper], the law that allowed the lower house of parliament, the House of Commons, to pass the legislation over the objection of the upper chamber. "The challenge to the Parliament Act is not about hunting – it's about the constitutional arrangements of our country and respect for the law,'' said Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart. If overturned, the ruling could affect other cases involving statutes passed under the Parliament Act, including legislation equalizing the age of consent between heterosexuals and homosexuals and the War Crimes Act in 1991, which extended the jurisdiction of British courts to acts committed on behalf of Nazi Germany during WWII. Read the Countryside Alliance press release on their House of Lords arguments. Bloomberg has more.