BAA Injunction: What Happened At Court Today
imc-uk er | 01.08.2007 16:36 | Climate Camp 2007
Please note: this is an article written after telephone contact with people outside the court. Please see the other report here.
The High Court in London was the scenery of some funny encounters today as BAA put forward their case for an injunction they served individuals from certain anti-airport groups earlier last week. We'll spare you all the boring details, so let's jump to the exciting bits. Basically, the whole thing was badly put together from BAA's side. Timothy Lawson Cruttenden (TLC) was representing BAA in this case, interestingly enough the same lawyers firm that tried to slap injunctions on protesters at Brighton's weapons manufacturers EDO. This eventually failed miserably...
Anyhow, the start of the hearing was brought back to the afternoon and once in full swing, BAA put forward some evidence to give their injunction some substance. Their evidence were some articles from the Evening Standard and the Times newspapers and a chapter from the Eco Defence Handbook. Another bit of evidence was an article about last years Climate Camp in which it was said that local people had joined the protesters and mentiones were made about radical direct action tactics. Interestingly enough, the journalist who actually wrote that was in court today as well and said that some of the things in the article he had just 'put in' or made up. As one does...
Evidence like this is classed as 'hearsay' as it is no direct evidence and therefore pretty irrelevant in court.
It was unclear whether the injunction applied to the named people within the various organisations they served the papers to, or all members from those organisations. If it would apply to all members of the named organisations (over 5 million), it would probably be difficult to enforce but if it only applied to certain individuals, than the injunction wouldn't have a lot of effect.
BAA was so unclear about this, the judge was said to be very confused and gave them until tomorrow morning to get things straight: who are you asking to be injuncted and for what reasons? The whole injunction business seems to be a total joke, poorly prepared and mainly used as a scare tactic. As things currently look, it won't have any effect on the actual camp which is to take place from the 14th August. A spokesperson for the Camp For Climate Action was a lot clearer than BAA: ' This injunction is totally irrelevant to us. We won't be intimidated or bullied. The camp is going ahead! '
A ruling is expected on Friday.
imc-uk er
Comments
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its interesting how the injunction volume
01.08.2007 17:32
waste of court time.
peoples republic of southwark
thanks
01.08.2007 17:38
CH
BAA comes up to me and i'm like -WHATEVER!
01.08.2007 18:07
i can't actually believe today's antics of BAA and timothy lawson-cruttenden. i had expected something at least verging on substantial.
proof, if proof were needed, of their arrogance that they bring this injunction, then mess around in the high court for a few hours.
is it possible to be charged with contempt in an injunction hearing? or at least wasting the courts time?!! i wish.
have to wait till friday now, i guess...
faintly amused
injuncted
01.08.2007 19:32
ff