Marc Willers QC, Tessa Buchanan, and Owen Greenhall of Garden Court Chambers, with Helen Mountfield QC of Matrix Chambers, were commissioned by the Good Law Project to survey the legal landscape for Gypsy and Traveller groups to assess whether it complies with the UK’s legal obligations.
The Opinion focuses on two pillars of Gypsy and Traveller life: their continuing nomadism and their choice to live in caravans.
This is Counsels’ summary of the current state of affairs:
“The UK Government’s current approach, in policy and national law, places the UK in breach of obligations which it has undertaken as a matter of international law to facilitate the Gypsy and Traveller way of life and to refrain from discriminating against disabled people, the elderly or women. The practical effect of the combination of circumstances and law described in this Opinion is such that they currently make this traditional way of life almost impossible to pursue.”
