High Court undoes transport victories
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:
LONDON––The British High Court on April 12
reignited the five-month controversy over the export of live-
stock to European veal finishers and slaughterhouses with a
ruling that Dover, Plymouth, and Coventry had no jurisdic-
tion to ban live animal transport through their docks and air-
ports. The High Court rapped the civic authorities for acting
out of “narrow self-interest” in a “surrender to mob rule.”
The ruling undoes at a stroke the major gain from a
struggle backed by up to 92% of the public, according to
independent polls.
Anti-live export demonstrations commenced in
December 1994 after the European Union failed to adopt
rules of humane transport, and erupted into rioting at several
sites when, blockaded at ports, cattle exporters turned to fly-
ing animals to market. The conflict claimed six human lives:
two British livestock handlers and three Algerian crew mem-
bers aboard a chartered Air Algerie Boeing 737 that crashed
December 21 while returning from a night run to the
Netherlands, plus demonstrator Jill Phipps, 31, who was
crushed beneath a cattle truck on February 1, leaving behind
a nine-year-old son and a private animal sanctuary. Violence
continued into April on both sides, as the Animal Liberation
Front and pro-live export goons hit back and forth at each
other with vandalism and beatings.
A 21-month EU deadlock over humane transport
rules continues, as northern nations favor journey limits of
from six to 24 hours between off-truck rests, while
Mediterranean nations generally oppose any limits, arguing
that they would be left at an economic disadvantage.
