The High Court has ruled the government can sign the Chagos Island deal after a late-night injunction attempted to block it.
Early on Thursday, an emergency injunction from the High Court had stopped the government from concluding the Chagos Island deal to hand over sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius.
Mr Justice Goose had allowed “interim relief” to Bertrice Pompe, who had previously taken steps to bring legal action against the Foreign Office over the deal.
Ms Pompe is a Chagossian woman who sees the deal as a betrayal of their rights.
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The order, granted at 2.25am, had said the government may take “no conclusive or legally binding step to conclude its negotiations concerning the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Archipelago, to a foreign government or bind itself as to the particular terms of any such transfer”.
But after a hearing at the High Court on Thursday, a judge said the temporary injunction should be discharged.
This means the government could still sign the Chagos deal in the coming hours.
Downing Street welcomed this decision, saying the agreement is “vital to protect the British people and our national security”.
Bertrice Pompe and Bernadette Dugasse.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Justice Chamberlain told the High Court that the “public interest and the interests of the United Kingdom would be substantially prejudiced by the grant or continuance of interim relief”,
He said: “These matters provide a strong public interest reason against the continuance of interim relief.
“I have concluded that the stay granted by Mr Justice Goose should be discharged and there should be no further interim relief.”
During the hearing, Philip Rule KC, for Ms Pompe, had asked for the block on concluding the deal to continue to prevent “significant prejudice to the claimant”.
Mr Rule, appearing by video link from New York, later said it was “fanciful” to say that the deal would not be able to go ahead on a date other than Thursday.
He said: “The objectives of both sides will not have changed… They are not going to abandon that claim in the next two or three weeks.”
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Mr Justice Chamberlain, summarising a document given to the court by the government, said: “The agreement can be concluded today and it does not necessarily have to be at 9am.”
He then asked Sir James Eadie KC, for the FCDO, whether “the agreement can still be concluded if it is concluded today”.
Sir James confirmed that was the case.
He later said: “My instructions from Number 10 are that we need a decision by 1pm today if we are to sign today, and everybody is standing by.”
The location of the Chagos Islands
The decision from the High Court came very shortly before 1pm.
Ms Pompe, who filed the application for interim relief, believes the British government is acting with disregard for the human rights of the Chagossian people.
She has argued completion of the deal would amount to a breach of the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.
Chagossians are the former residents of the Chagos Islands, who were removed from the islands, predominantly to Mauritius, between the mid-1960s and early-1970s.
Those born on the islands and their children hold British nationality, but subsequent generations born outside British territory have no entitlement to it.
