PA News | November 8, 1999 | Stephen Howard, PA News
Monsanto was cited as continuing its legal battle today against environmental campaigners who uprooted their plants at trial sites.
The company is, the story says, appealing against a High Court decision not to grant an immediate order banning six members of genetiX snowball from their farms.
Mr Justice Klevan ruled in April this year that the protesters may have a defence to the application for a permanent injunction and said the matter would have to go before a full hearing.
Michael Lyndon-Stanford QC, representing Monsanto, was cited as telling the Court of Appeal today that the proceedings "concerned the activities of the defendants and those they represent in pursuing a deliberate policy of interfering with private rights in order to obtain publicity for a political campaign".
He said their aim was to bring about a change in the law so that farmers and bio-technology companies have to destroy all GM crops.
"There is nothing wrong with pursuing a political campaign in a democratic society but what is wrong is to make it part of the policy to infringe private rights."
