Updated: Hunters’ objections to spring hunting referendum ‘illogical and legally baseless’

The Coalition for the Abolition of Spring Hunting have submitted their replies to the hunters’ objections to the referendum in the Constitutional Court. Terming the hunters’ objections as “illogical and legally baseless”, the coalition replied, paragraph by paragraph, to the hunters' objections, including the one which dealt with the number of signatures collected. While the hunters raised doubts on the Electoral Commission’s exercise to verify the signatures, the coalition said that even when the mathematical margin of error was subtracted, the number of signatures collected was that of 41,494, well above the 33,000 threshold. Referring to the hunters’ complaint that the commission had not sought the services of a calligraphic expert to verify the signatures, the coalition said the commission was not bound by law to appoint such an expert. The coalition also threw out the hunters’ complaint that the Referenda Act prevented the holding of a referendum to abolish any legislation of a fiscal nature. It said there was nothing fiscal about spring hunting because there was no requirement of a specific licence to go hunting in spring. Moreover, the legal notice was on the derogation...