IF YOU are planning on hunting in three weeks, do not give up all hope, yet. The pro-hunt lobby’s attempt to secure a judicial review of last November’s Act banning hunting with dogs predictably failed in the High Court yesterday. But that is far from the end of the story.

It is all a question of timing. Even if the outcome of the legal challenges looks certain, upholding the legality of the ban, the when remains uncertain.

The ban is due to come into force on February 18 but the Countryside Alliance and supporters of hunting have been given leave to appeal. The Court of Appeal will hear the case on February 8. The key questions then will be whether an injunction is granted to delay implementation until the Court of Appeal’s decision is announced; if the appeal is lost, will leave be granted to appeal to the law lords; and will an injunction then be accepted to delay the ban?

Tony Blair and his allies have preferred regulation of hunting to an outright ban. They have also argued for an 18-month transition rather than an immediate halt to hunting. So ministers would not try to prevent an injunction putting off implementation. They now accept that hunting will be banned in due course, but they want to avoid big demonstrations and disruption before a spring general election. There is a tactical, if not strategic, similarity of interest between the Government and the Countryside Alliance. The real worry for Labour leaders is that the courts will decide too quickly.

There is little doubt about the eventual outcome. This week’s challenge has been about the way the Hunting Act was forced through by invoking the Parliament Act 1949 in face of the opposition of the House of Lords. The point at dispute is the validity of the 1949 Act, which reduced the delaying powers of the Lords from two to one years. The 1949 Act was forced through under the terms of the original Parliament Act 1911. The pro-hunters argued that this amendment was impermissible because it amounted to unlawfully delegated legislation. This view has been shared by a number of leading lawyers and some judges.

Lord Justice Kay dismissed these objections yesterday and ruled that the 1949 Act is valid, and therefore the hunting ban is lawful. The courts have been wary of challenging the decisions of Parliament in this way.

Yet even if the attempt to upset the hunting ban on these grounds fails, a parallel challenge is being mounted under the Human Rights Act on the grounds of loss of livelihood and the lack of a compensation scheme. This is potentially a more serious problem for the Government in view of earlier warnings on this issue by the inquiry under Lord Burns of Pitshanger and others, although ministers are confident that they can see off this challenge.

This is a battle over timing and dates, as much as over the substance of the ban where the views of the House of Commons are clear after ten votes against hunting with dogs. But there are also doubts about how far the police will seek to prosecute those who continue to hunt. The hunting saga is likely to run on for much longer than three weeks.

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