R v Coventry Airport, ex parte Phoenix Aviation ; R v Dover Harbour Board, ex parte Peter Gilder and Sons ; R v Associated British Ports, ex parte Plymouth City Council
Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
Judgment Date | 12 April 1995 |
Date | 12 April 1995 |
Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Queen's Bench Divisional Court
Before Lord Justice Simon Brown and Mr Justice Popplewell
Harbours and docks - discretion to refuse trade - livestock exports
Coventry Airport, Dover Harbour Board and Millbay Docks, Plymouth had no general discretion under their respective statutory regimes to distinguish between different lawful trades; and even if they had they could not properly exercise it to ban the livestock trade on grounds that it was generating unlawful disruption.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court so held in granting applications by Phoenix Aviation and Peter Gilder & Sons for judicial review of the refusal by Coventry Airport and Dover Harbour Board, respectively, to handle the shipping of livestock intended for slaughter; and in dismissing an application by Plymouth City Council for judicial review of a decision by Associated British Ports that it had no discretion to ban such livestock trade through Millbay Docks, Plymouth.
Lord Kingsland, QC and Ms Karen McHugh for Phoenix Aviation; Mr Stuart Isaacs, QC, Mr Clive Lewis and Mr Paul Brown for Coventry City Council.
Mr David Pannick, QC and Mr David Anderson for Dover Harbour Board; Mr David Vaughan, QC, Mr David Lloyd-Jones and Mr Philip Moser for Peter Gilder & Sons.
Mr Richard Gordon, QC and Mr Nicholas Green for Plymouth City Council; Mr Richard Field, QC, Mr Nigel Giffin and Mr Nigel Porter for ABP.
Mr Charles Haddon-Cave for the National Farmers Union; Mr Nigel Plender, QC and Mr Peter Duffy for Compassion in World Farming (CWF); Mr Hockman, QC, for the Chief Constable of Kent, interveners.
LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN, giving the judgment of the court, said that the export of live animals for slaughter was lawful but many thought it immoral. They objected in particular to the shipment of live calves for rearing in veal crates, a practice banned in this country since 1990.
The result was that for some months past the trade had attracted widespread concern and a great deal of highly publicised protest. Some of that protest was lawful, some alas was not.
It was the actual and threatened unlawful activity of animal rights protesters which underlay the instant applications. It was fear of unlawful disruption which had prompted Coventry and...
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