In a development without precedent in English legal history, the High Court of Justice has frozen the signing of an international treaty just hours before it was due to be concluded. It is the first time an English court has paused a treaty in this way.
After a marathon emergency session lasting five hours, The Honourable Mr Justice Goose handed down a remarkable ruling shortly before 3am, barring Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy from taking any step to transfer the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius.
The Chagos treaty had been due for signature today. It now stands paused under an emergency order while the courts give full consideration to the legal challenge mounted by Bertrice Pompe, who is seeking to stop the treaty being concluded.
Ms Pompe, the claimant, was represented by Philip Rule KC, leading Michael Polak, and instructed by Stuart Luke of Luke and Bridger Law. Acting for the Government were William Irwin and John Bethell. We owe a special mention to Toby Noskwith, a key organiser and campaign coordinator who has been on this from the very beginning, and we are proud that the Great British PAC was able to assist so substantially throughout yesterday’s events.
Ms Pompe, who brought this emergency challenge, contends that the treaty would inflict irreparable harm and breach fundamental principles of law and human rights. She is a Chagossian, born on Diego Garcia and expelled when she was just six months old. Raised in the Seychelles, she now makes her home in London. As a British national, Ms Pompe — in common with thousands of Chagossians from the Seychelles and elsewhere — stands to gain nothing whatsoever from the deal with Mauritius unless she applies for Mauritian citizenship.
A further hearing is listed for 10:30am today at the High Court. The treaty cannot move forward until Ms Pompe’s judicial review has been heard in full. Having now been forcibly restrained by the Court, the Government must answer claims that include grave breaches of due process, racial persecution, human rights violations and irrational governance.
The ruling is being called a historic humiliation for the Government and a rare instance of judicial intervention in foreign affairs — a field that ordinarily rests with executive prerogative. It lays bare just how deeply flawed observers believe the Chagos negotiations to be.
A race against the clock
The dramatic intervention came after the Government leaked, late on Tuesday night, plans to sign the treaty on Thursday — even though many had assumed the deal was already dead. That set off a high-stakes legal race against time. Ms Pompe, her legal team and allied campaigners worked without pause to lodge an “out of hours” urgent application for interim relief, aiming to freeze the deal until it could face judicial scrutiny.
Conscious that the treaty could be signed at any moment, the team mounted a last-ditch effort, asking the High Court to step in before the Chagossians’ homeland was handed away for good.
The courtroom battle that followed was intense. Mr Justice Goose was sceptical at first, but after hours of argument he was persuaded to take the extraordinary step of pausing a treaty — something almost unheard of in British legal history. Those who watched have described the hearing as a triumph of perseverance, creativity and sheer determination by the legal team.
Government lawyers, meanwhile, battled into the small hours with mounting desperation to keep the deal alive. Their failure amounts to a catastrophic political setback. The UK and Mauritian Governments, which had laid on an elaborate virtual signing ceremony, have been forced to abandon their plans — or risk defying British law.
Austerity at home, billions abroad
Ministers had hoped to push the deal through ahead of an anticipated firestorm in Parliament, where MPs are soon to vote on deep cuts to welfare and social security. That gambit has backfired. Set against domestic austerity, the optics of the decision have already provoked public anger.
The treaty’s £9 billion price tag — reportedly front-loaded in its payments — has been condemned as a huge transfer of British money to a deeply corrupt foreign regime, while the Chagossians, whose rights have been brushed aside, are left with neither protection nor benefit.
Keir Starmer and David Lammy had wanted to bury their contentious Chagos policy quietly. Instead they now face the full glare of the British judiciary — and the fury of the public and of political opponents right across the spectrum.
