Michael Polak comments on the Chaggossian People’s Legal Challenge to Government Decision to Give Islands to Mauritius in the Times

Michael Polak has provided comment in The Times’ article which profiles Chagossians Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompé and their wishes to return to the place of their birth and to resist the Government’s actions in giving the islands to Mauritius.

This article also mentions the upcoming High Court ruling on permission for judicial review to challenge the deal made by Sir Keir Starmer to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, along with an estimated £30 billion, on the basis that the Chagossian’s should have been consulted about the deal, that the right to return and visitation right of the Chagossian people should be considered before a formal legal handover takes place, and that the status of the Chagossian people as the indigenous people of the Islands with the strongest ties to them was also ignored by the Government in their actions before signing the agreement with Mauritius.

Michael Polak, led by Phillip Rule KC of No 5 Chambers, represent Bertrice Pompé in the judicial review action and they are instructed by Stuart Luke of Luke and Bridger.

Highlighting that the legal scenery had now changed in relation to allowing the Chagossians to return to the Island Michael said: “The government’s historic arguments of security and costs don’t really hold water anymore. The treatment of the Chagossian people over the decades has been appalling, ripping them from their lands.

“The least that they could have expected from this government was to have their voices properly heard and considered. Unfortunately, this government has taken a very similar approach to earlier governments and hopes that if they ignore them, they will go away.”

Read the full article published in The Times, here.