Act should be repealed
Your correspondent Helen Weeks (Your Say, February 10) is absolutely correct to highlight the shortcomings of the Hunting Act 2004.
However well intentioned it might have been, the Hunting Act 2004 is a troublesome embarrassment. The obvious flaw with it is that it does not deliver an absolute ban.
So much time spent on deliberation, and so many concessions after consultation, have left a law that doesn't seem to know what its purpose is.
The current clamour for "strengthening" is equally wrongheaded and displays a lack of understanding as to how the words "cause and permit" would function within this legislation.
This confusion is not confined to the wording of the legislation – actual or proposed. A casual glance at the list of current Early Day Motions in Parliament reveals that certain MPs have now signed an EDM (122) to strengthen the act as well as another EDM (481), stating that the act needs better enforcement.
This begs a question of those members: how can the police be expected to enforce a law that members are also saying needs strengthening?
While pondering this conundrum, let us not forget the disunity within the anti-hunting community itself, played out on the pages of the Western Daily Press, and typified by the policy chasm that has opened between the League Against Cruel Sports and POWA.
The question above is equally relevant to these two animal welfare/rights organisations as it is to all council-tax payers.
Hunting wild mammals with dogs may well be anathema to some people – Lord Burns was unable to offer definitive conclusions either way – but, as it stands, the Hunting Act 2004 is an unsatisfactory law that should be repealed.
Professor Douglas de Creccy Dorset and London
3 Comments
by Giles Bradshaw, Rose Ash
Thursday, February 19 2009, 9:45AM
“The CPS recently stated in court that the Hunting Act is 'wholly unworkable' and 'virtually unenforceable'.
If this is really their belief then it is hard to see why they would bring more prosecutions under it as they only prosecute where they believe there is a good chance of success.
If this is not their belief then they have lied to the courts.”
by Shaun Freke, Gloucestershire
Wednesday, February 18 2009, 4:37PM
“If the essence of good law is that it addresses the issues fairly and correctly, then this act fails on all fronts. It was not intended to be animal welfare legislation, it can't be because it doesn't stop the killing of foxes. In fact if anything it hastens their demise by other means. From a Labour party perspective it was ,and still remains, an attack on the upper classes and a direct response to the Conservative attack on the trade unions. They failed to realise that a high percentage of hunts are made up of working class people and the rural community, the main percentage of whom place conservation - and yes that means fox numbers as well - high of their personal agendas. If animal welfare is the main agenda of this bill then a set, maintained and monitored population is the only way forward with set cull numbers of weak and out of condition foxes. For this to work the hunts need to continue.”
by John Bryant, Tonbridge, Kent
Wednesday, February 18 2009, 3:39PM
“It's silly to call for the repeal of a law that proves to have loop-holes. The Badgers Act 1973 was brought in to outlaw badger digging, but it took nineteen years and three more Acts of Parliament to close all the loop-holes exploited by badger diggers and their lawyers. Repealing laws that don't immediately result in the elimination of all crimes would result in a criminals' paradise. If an Act of Parliament proves to be inadequate, it should be amended until it does the job Parliamemt meant it to do.”