LEGAL AID AWARDED
Following a year-long battle, Uncaged Campaigns' director Dan Lyons
has finally been awarded legal aid in the battle to defend against
Imutran and Novartis Pharma's claims for damages and costs over
breach of confidentiality and copyright following the publication
of the Diaries of Despair report and leaked documents on 21 September
2000. In defending the case, the Defendants are also aiming to overturn
the injunction currently banning the publication of the leaked information.
The turning point in the arduous application happened when the
Legal Services Commission (LSC - the Government department which
administers legal aid) finally accepted the legal merits of the
Defence case. Those merits turned on whether limited disclosure
to the regulators, such as Home Office, but not to the public, was
sufficient.
Our argument for unfettered publication and freedom of expression
is based on our contention that the Imutran documents raise serious
questions about the conduct of the regulatory system itself: the
Government has deliberately failed to implement the law and regulations
as Parliament and the public intended because of its collusive relationship
with animal research companies such as Imutran/Novartis and Huntingdon
Life Sciences, and callous attitude towards animals and their welfare.
Having accepted the merits of our case, the LSC placed our application
before its Public Interest Advisory Panel. The Panel examined the
case in order to decide whether the case has a 'significant wider
public interest' - a further hurdle to negotiate before the awarding
of legal aid. Following their meeting, the Panel informed us:
"The Panel considered that this case raised
important questions as to the public's right to information concerning
medical research. The case was significant firstly for the legal
issue as to the application of Article 10 of the Convention [i.e.
the European Convention on Human Rights], the right to freedom of
expression. Further the case raised more general issues as to public
accountability in research activity. The Panel was therefore satisfied
that the significance of the case extended beyond the particular
field of animal experimentation, although that area was of course
recognised as one of high public concern.
"The Panel was therefore satisfied that this
case has a significant wider public interest. Among cases which
have a significant wider public interest, the current practice of
the Panel is to assess the public interest in one of three categories,
namely, 'exceptional', 'high' or simply in the category of 'significant'
wider public interest. In the circumstances referred to above the
Panel gave this case a rating of 'High'... The decision of the Panel
was unanimous."
[Note: we are informed that the vast majority of cases receive
merely a 'significant' rating, while 'exceptional' is unheard of.]
The Panel decision is a massive endorsement of the importance and
the merits of our case.
Dan Lyons comments:
"The publication of the Imutran documents has
the potential to cause seismic changes in the debate about animal
experiments and obviously that has enormous significance for the
ultimate question of the scale of animal experimentation and whether
it takes place at all. For the first time, the public, the media
and politicians will be aware of the true horror of animal experimentation,
and the inaccurate claims made by companies such as Imutran for
the potential human benefits of such extreme cruelty. These experiments
only receive Government licenses because this truth is concealed
from democratic scrutiny. This is why the legal battle we are fighting,
and our political battle for an independent judicial inquiry into
the Government's appalling misconduct, are of such historic importance."
Uncaged Campaigns, 10 July 2002
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