UK High Court blocks legal challenge to Chagos agreement with Mauritius

The High Court in London refused on Tuesday to grant permission to initiate legal proceedings against the British Foreign Office over the agreement concluded between the United Kingdom and Mauritius regarding the Chagos Archipelago.

Three plaintiffs, including Bertrice Pompe, a British national born on Diego Garcia, challenged this agreement. They argued in particular that the British government had not consulted the Chagossians before reaching this arrangement with Mauritius. Bertrice Pompe had already tried, last May, to block this agreement in court, without success.

In her written decision, Judge Mary Stacey acknowledged “the long and shameful history of the treatment inflicted on the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands” in the 1960s and 1970s, a period during which the Chagossians were expelled from the archipelago to allow for the installation of military facilities.

However, the judge considered that the challenge presented was essentially a repetition of arguments that had already been examined and rejected by English courts in previous cases concerning the Chagos.

The High Court therefore refused to grant permission to continue the legal proceedings.

Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s and evicted all inhabitants to make way for a military base.

Last May, Britain agreed to hand back sovereignty to Mauritius while maintaining a lease on the largest island, Diego Garcia, home to the military base now used by the United States.