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Human Rights

Of course it is a matter for the courts as to whether an injunction should be granted, but it is a matter for Parliament to decide the circumstances in which that power should be available to the courts. The hon. Member for Cambridge came up with what I thought was a very neat formulation, which is that a court should pay due regard to articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. That would not necessarily bind a court, but it would mean that, for example in the circumstances that my hon. Friend outlined—a better example might be that of animal rights activists who have actively engaged in violence—the injunction could still be granted ex parte, but that should be the exception and not the norm.