Chagos Islanders win right to go home
Updated on 23 May 2007
The appeal court has accused ministers of "acting without any constraint" in trying to stop the people of the Chagos Islands from returning to their homes.
The families and well-wishers packed the court of appeal for a ruling which condemned government tactics stopping their return as unlawful and an abuse of power.
Three judges headed by the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, refused a stay on the effect of their judgment, allowing the islanders to return to their Indian Ocean homes immediately.
The only island they will not be able to resettle under original high court orders allowing their return, will be Diego Garcia itself.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, who took the case to the court of appeal after two high court judges had found for the Chagossians, will now have to show "good cause" if she wants the appeal judges to order a stay.
The government was also refused permission to take the case to the House of Lords but is expected to petition the law lords directly, seeking a final challenge at the highest court in the land.
Lord Justice Sedley, giving the lead ruling today, said the method used by the government to stop the islanders returning - making an order in council under the royal prerogative - was unlawful and an abuse of power by the government executive.
Lord Justice Waller said the decision had been taken by a government minister "acting without any constraint".
"Indeed, the Crown may be doing something that, if she only knew the true position, she would prefer not to do, and yet it is then said that the Government can hide behind the 'Crown's prerogative'."
Richard Gifford, the solicitor for the islanders, said in a triumphant speech outside the royal courts of justice in the Strand, that the appeal judges had thrown out the government's appeal against a high court ruling which cancelled two laws passed by "secret order-in-council procedure".
"It has been held that the ties which bind a people to its homeland are so fundamental that no executive order can lawfully abrogate those rights".
Chagos Islands: background
The former inhabitants of the islands were evicted in the 1960s and 1970s as part of an arrangement between the United Kingdom and the United States to establish a defence establishment on the island of Diego Garcia.
The islanders' plight has been well documented, including a documentary produced by investigative journalist John Pilger, entitled Stealing a Nation, which won the British Royal Television Society Best Documentary Award in 2004.
In 2000, the English high court ruled that a local ordinance made by the Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory exiling the islanders was unlawful, a decision which was accepted by the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook.
After this decision, the British government attempted to achieve the same objective through use of the royal prerogative; a strategy which was also found to be unlawful by the High Court.
The UK government has launched an appeal at the Court of Appeal against this ruling.
TIn the medium term the US lease of Diego Garcia is by treaty currently set to expire in 2016, although both governments have the option of extending the lease for another 20 years if considered necessary.
