Judge denies the Peace Tax Seven the right to a judicial review.
Brenda Broughton a retired teacher from Oxford was at the Royal Courts of Justice with six other claimants to hear the arguments. After a demonstration outside the court we crowded into both galleries in Court 2 and the Judge allowed some to sit in the court too. He was encouraging and the sincerely held beliefs of these seven people were not in doubt, though he seemed sceptical about them being keen to pay their taxes.
The Questions was could their beliefs allow them to divert some of their tax to a fund for peaceful purposes ? They hoped that Article 9 of the Human Rights Act, which gives freedom of belief AND the freedom to manifest those beliefs in practice, could allow this and even get the government to provide an alternative fund.

The fact that you hold such beliefs does not suffice as in Arrowsmith 1983 when there was not a close enough connection between Pat’s belief in pacifism and her action of handing out leaflets to soldiers inviting them to refuse to serve in N. Ireland.

Counsel for H.M. Taxes argued that the obligation to pay taxes is morally and religiously neutral and that the Strasbourg jurisprudence is clear and constant and we have international obligations to stick to this. He suggested the question was does paying taxes have a moral significance ? This suggested that there should be a bible text to support not paying as there was in the Williams case when is was allowed that they should be able to instruct the independent school they sent their children to to chastise them if they needed to be punished for misbehaviour. The Judge remarked that this was in the OT and seemed to understand the irony of bringing this case allowing physical violence as support for the present claimants argument.
The judge often seemed willing but the six cases which had previously had to be taken to Strasbourg remained in the way and despite remarking that political pressure were behind some of the judgements at Strasbourg, the judge decided that he could not allow this application.
He said "If I refuse you I think you will re-apply" and finally remarked that in refusing permission to take this case for judicial review he was speeding things up and that it would be more economical.
The claimants were disappointed and not convinced by his remarks. They will be deciding what to do in the next few days.

Sarah Lasenby