Arguments on behalf of Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE) and the Christian Legal Centre will be heard at the High Court on 26th November (date subject to confirmation by Court) as they seek to gain permission to challenge the decision made by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to grant licences for the creation of animal human hybrids. CORE and CLC will argue that the HFEA's decision, made in January 2008, was outside the bounds of the law at that time and that the granting of such licences was ‘unnecessary and undesirable’ given that alternative, ethical research available to the research teams should have been exhausted before considering the creation of animal human hybrids.
CORE and the Christian Legal Centre will also have their application for a Protected Costs Order considered saying that this is a matter of Public Interest. If Core and CLC are granted a Protected Costs Order, this can either be on the basis that they will not have to pay the HFEA's legal costs, or on the basis that the costs they risk in the case will be capped at a reasonable level.
Background to the case
On the 8th of April 2008, the Christian Legal Centre (CLC) and Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE) filed papers seeking judicial review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s decision to grant licences to Newcastle University and King's College London to use animal-human hybrids.
The legal challenge is on two grounds. First, CLC and CORE are arguing that the HFEA acted beyond its powers when it granted the licences because the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 does not permit licenses for the creation of animal human hybrids. Secondly, the 1990 HFE Act provides that licences cannot be granted unless the HFEA is satisfied that the research is necessary or desirable for one of a number of specified purposes and the HFEA is satisfied that any proposed use of embryos is necessary for the purposes of the research.
The CLC and CORE are arguing that the proposed techniques are unnecessary and undesirable as a result of technical advances and that the proposed techniques do not work and raise new scientific problems which will make the research meaningless.
There is no legal internal process either in the 1990 Act or in the new Bill for interested persons to object to or appeal against the grant of a license and ask for reconsideration. In view of this lack of public accountability, the only way of challenging the HFEA’s decisions is by way of judicial review.
Links to media reports on the case
BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7323298.stm
Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-558337/Christian-group-launches-
High-Court- bid-prove-creation- human-animal-embryos-illegal.html
BBC Radio 4 Today programme:
http://www.ccfon.org/mediacentre.php?avid=59&avap=1
Links to lay summary of
the Newcastle project and the King’s College
Project
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/1652.html
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/1653.html