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Brian Friend widens his Hunting Act appeal

During his appeal to the Law Lords, UCSW member, Brian Friend, took his case beyond the hunting issue and questioned whether the protection of the Human Rights Act and the European Convention was realistically available to the majority of ordinary people in the UK.

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Human rights are for ‘everyone’ but the courts appear to be narrowly selective in who they consider to fall within their protection, primarily using a legal authority (Cleft), wherein grounds for the ‘other status’ provision for discrimination within the Convention is limited to those with personal characteristics distinguishable from others.

This he argued had the effect of excluding the majority indigenous population and any cultural group within that majority.

“Human rights are for everyone yet they only seem to be realistically available to criminals, terrorists, gypsies, migrant groups, Saami villagers, minority groups everywhere and even to former KGB officers, but not to the hunting community or to the normal people of the United Kingdom.

I have always defended the Convention and our need for it as we have nothing else: no Constitution and a Common Law that can be legislated against at the whim of the House of Commons, elected by a minority of electors, and where the restraints of the Lords have been all but removed by the corruption and emasculation of the Parliament Act. But I have no sympathy for Human Rights legislation or a Convention that is only available to a selected politically correct few.”