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LONDON — The image of Britons in scarlet coats galloping over fields as their dogs chase foxes is fixed in the popular imagination. But Britain's highest court ruled Wednesday that laws banning the hunts must stand.
Hunters had appealed two bans: one passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2002 and another, enacted in 2004, applying to England and Wales. The laws banned using dogs to hunt mammals.
Hunting supporters argued that the laws violated the rights of people whose livelihoods depended on hunting.
But on Wednesday, the Law Lords — a committee of the House of Lords that acts as Britain's highest court — dismissed the appeals.
The 2004 law banning hunting in England and Wales must "be taken to reflect the conscience of a majority of the nation," Lord Bingham said in the unanimous ruling.
"The democratic process is liable to be subverted," Bingham wrote, if hunting supporters achieve in court what they failed to achieve in Parliament.
The House of Commons forced the English and Welsh ban into law after the legislation was repeatedly defeated in the House of Lords.
In rejecting the associated appeal against the Scottish ban, Lord Hope wrote that "there was adequate factual information to entitle the Scottish Parliament to conclude that fox hunting inflicted pain on the fox," and was therefore cruel.
Opponents of hunting say the fox dies an excruciating death as it is ripped apart by the pack of dogs.
But the Countryside Alliance, a group of hunting advocates, argues that between 6,000 and 8,000 people eventually will lose their jobs because of the ban — and many will also lose their homes.
In 2004, hunt supporters organized marches against the legislation, and eight hunt supporters invaded the House of Commons in 2004 to protest.
Under the Hunting Act, dogs can be used to chase a fox into open ground but not to harm it. Instead, the fox can be shot. Because of that, the legislation has not entirely banned the colorful spectacle of horse-mounted hunters setting out in pursuit of game.
