High Court Grants Permission for Judicial Review Challenge to Public Order Regulations

The High Court has granted the charity Animal Aid permission on the papers to apply for judicial review challenging the lawfulness of the Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2026 (“the Regulations”), recognising the matter as one of public interest.

The Regulations were made pursuant to a Henry VIII power and their sole purpose is to amend the Public Order Act 2023 (“the Act”) so that “life sciences infrastructure” is treated as “key national infrastructure” for the purposes of the criminal offence of interfering with its use or operation under section 7 of the Act. The definition of life sciences infrastructure potentially captures all facilities connected with animal testing and experimentation, and those licensed under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, irrespective of their purpose. Animal Aid is concerned that this definition risks criminalising legitimate advocacy and peaceful protest on a controversial issue of public interest.

Animal Aid challenges the Regulations on two grounds:

First, it argues that the definition of “life sciences infrastructure” goes beyond the natural meaning of the term “infrastructure”, and Parliament intended the list of “key national infrastructure” in section 7(6) of the Act to be constrained to those kinds of infrastructure that are “essential to national life”. In the existing statutory context, the definition had been limited to nationally significant infrastructure relating to transport, energy, utilities and newspapers.

Second, Animal Aid argues that the Secretary of State failed to conduct a lawful consultation on the proposed Regulations. There was evidence that engagement with life sciences industry representatives had been undertaken voluntarily; however, no consultation or engagement had been carried out with animal rights groups who could be affected by the amendments.

Permission having been granted, the Court will now determine the lawfulness of the Regulations and the limits of the definition of “key national infrastructure”.

Alex Shattock and Rossen Roussanov act for Animal Aid, instructed by Edie Bowles at Advocates for Animals.