Few people realise how the Human Rights Act really works. When a Minister presents any Bill to Parliament, he or she has to provide a personal declaration that the proposals do not conflict with the human rights legislation. If you get this wrong, you can be tested before British courts and even be taken before the European Court of Human Rights.
I always took that responsibility seriously - but it was particularly important in the case of the Hunting Act which was designed to end over a decade of controversial debates in Parliament. That's just as well, because the hunting fraternity threw everything against the will of Parliament - from constitutional challenges to an appeal through the courts.
Last week the European Court rejected their case in every particular.
As the Minister responsible for finding a way through this political minefield, I had tried to move the debate away from prejudice and onto evidence and principles. Even the Countryside Alliance's chairman conceded that we should ban cruelty and allow dogs to be used only in pest control that is strictly necessary and when the use of dogs is the least cruel method. So the Hunting Act allows dogs to be used on rats (this is necessary pest control and alternatives of poison and traps give a particularly unpleasant death for rats AND for other animals that become unintended victims).
Those who went to Europe did so to defend "a human right to be cruel" in hunting a fox or deer. It's not surprising that they lost - but it demonstrates the depth of feeling on this vexed issue that they even tried. It also appears that this issue may be forced back onto the political agenda in the near future, as if there weren't more important issues.
However, we should never be afraid of open debate and I simply ask anyone who wants to express an opinion first to read the three days of hearings I chaired in Portcullis House in September 2002. Both sides in the hunting debate agreed the list of witnesses and both sides cross-examined each other's witnesses. It's the fairest examination of the issues ever mounted, and you can read the full transcripts if you go to …………
http://www.defra.gov.uk/rural/countryside/hunting/huntinghearingsschedule.htm <http://www.defra.gov.uk/rural/countryside/hunting/huntinghearingsschedule.htm> .