Barnet Eruv

2:43pm Tuesday 5th December 2000

An Israeli television team were recently over here to make a documentary about the proposed Barnet Eruv. This gave me an opportunity to update the putative civil rights case against the Eruv proposal in terms of the Human Rights Act.

In my opinion the proposal is discriminatory in the right to manifest one's religious or other beliefs. Eruv-believers would happily pass through their symbolic gateways in the streets, but everyone else would be compelled to do with such a benefit, even if the compulsory passage through the Eruv structures is offensive to a person's beliefs.

Secondly house wall and fences within private property would form parts of the proposed Eruv Boundary. This Boundary was defined by the Eruv Committee with the guidance and approval of religious judges who have never denied that they regard the gift of £400 accepted by Barnet Council from the Eruv Committee in 1991 as a symbolic domain rental for the proposed Eruv area including the boundary house. The employment of this device to obviate seeking the consent of the affected residents infringes their right to respect for their homes by public authorities.

In my view the Eruv proposal contravenes the Human Rights Act.

Dr Jeffrey Seagall

Cricklewood Lane, Cricklewood

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