Badger Trust wins permission to bring judicial review over cull plans

A High Court judge has granted the Badger Trust permission to bring judicial review proceedings over the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ decision to allow a cull of badgers in England.

The ruling by Mr Justice Irwin means a hearing is likely to take place in June 2012.

Defra announced earlier this year that, as part of its programme to tackle bovine tuberculosis, two pilot culls would take place in Somerset and Gloucestershire under licences issued by Natural England.

The Badger Trust will put forward three grounds in its challenge to Defra’s decision.

These are:

• The proposed cull would not meet the strict legal test of ‘preventing the spread of disease’ in the areas being licensed, and may in fact amount to a recipe for spreading the disease. The Trust claimed that Defra’s own evidence confirmed that the proposed cull would prompt the spread of disease in and around the cull zones. This is “entirely antithetical” to the aims in the strict test set down in section 10(2)(a) of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, it argued;
• The cost impact assessment underpinning Defra’s decision was flawed. The Secretary of State did not ask herself the right questions so as to obtain crucial information on costs, for example if the farmer free-shooting option is ruled out during the piloting of the cull plans; and
• Guidance which Defra issued to Natural England was invalid. The trust argues that section 15(2) of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 does not give the Secretary of State the power to issue guidance to Natural England on killing badgers.

Badger Trust’s solicitor, Gwendolen Morgan of Bindmans, said “We are pleased that the court has given the Badger Trust’s challenge the green light on all three grounds. The badger cull as proposed would make matters worse at great cost to farmers, badgers and rural communities.”