THE lives of people living in rural communities are already being devastated by the UK government's "unjust" hunting ban.. The warning came as hunt campaigners launched a second High Court challenge to the total prohibition on hunting with dogs in England and Wales. They condemned it as "divisive, sectarian and unlawful". The two-pronged challenge is based on alleged infringements of the European Convention on Human Rights and breaches of EU law protecting the free movement of workers and goods. The application for judicial review is being opposed by the attorney general. He argues the ban was necessary and proportionate and there was no illegality or breach of human rights. The ban, introduced under the 2004 Hunting Act, took effect in February. The first legal challenge claimed the Act was constitutionally flawed. But that argument failed in the High Court and Court of Appeal and is now due to be heard next week by nine law lords in the House of Lords, the highest court in the land. Yesterday Richard Lissack QC, appearing for the Countryside Alliance, said the new law was "criminalising" a whole section of the community and threatening to devastate it while doing little to alleviate the suffering of animals. He told Lord Justice May and Mr Justice Moses, sitting at the High Court in London: "Jobs gone, homes gone, livelihoods destroyed, communities left bereaved - all this will flow if the injustices of the Hunting Act are not addressed. "Indeed, it has started already". The Hunting Act proscribed an "ancient, useful and culturally significant country activity", but it was far from clear it increased animal welfare. Mr Lissack said: "Thousands of people can no longer lead their lives as they wish because of what we will endeavour to show is no more than prejudice - or at the least - the dis-taste of the majority". The QC said the Alliance and 10 individuals were seeking judicial review because they were facing an end to their way of life and possible ruin. They want a declaration the Hunting Act is "incompatible" with the European Convention on Human Rights. Foxes and other hunted animals would still be culled by man, often with methods of extermination which might be legal but caused more suffering than the hunt. | 
