Foreign Office Challenges Chagos Island Ruling

A ruling that families removed from the Chagos Islands 30 years ago should be allowed to return home was "unprecedented" under law and should be overturned, the Foreign Office argued in court today.

A barrister acting on behalf of the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said the high court decision last May, that overturned orders permanently exiling the islanders from their homeland, was legally flawed.

The argument came on the opening day of the government's appeal against the court decision, which marked a major victory for the Chagos islanders.

The 2,000-strong population was moved from the archipelago, between Africa and Indonesia, after the UK government secretly sold the US a 50-year lease for one of the islands, Diego Garcia, to use as an air base.

The islanders have won two court decisions, in 2000 and 2006, declaring the British actions unlawful.

In the landmark May ruling, two high court judges called the British government's treatment of the islanders "repugnant" and said the orders made under the royal prerogative to prevent their return were irrational and unlawful.

At the start of the appeal hearing, estimated to take five days, John Howell argued on behalf of Mrs Beckett that the judges had "erred in law".

If their ruling was correct, it represented a "revolutionary change in the constitutional law involved, which will affect all British overseas territories", he told the three-judge appeal panel, including the master of the rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke.

"The divisional court has asserted a jurisdiction to determine what considerations Her Majesty may take into account and the purposes for which she may so legislate," Mr Howell said.

"No court has previously asserted such a jurisdiction so far as I am aware. The divisional court has also asserted that Her Majesty may not legislate for such a territory to promote the interests of the UK and in particular its defence and security interests.

"This is a conclusion that is not merely unprecedented, it is one that is hard to reconcile with this country's remaining interests in territories overseas."

The eviction of the Chagossians is widely seen as one of the worst stains on British colonial history. Most were left to fend for themselves in the slums of Port Louis, Mauritius. The islanders have the support of the Commonwealth secretary-general, Don McKinnon.

A large group of islanders today demonstrated outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, handing out posters declaring: "We will return to Diego Garcia."

Among those in the courtroom was the leader of the Chagos Refugee Group, Olivier Bancoult, who is being represented by a QC to challenge the appeal.