[JURIST] The traditional British fox hunt is to be banned after the House of Commons Thursday invoked the rarely-used Parliament Act of 1949 to force through the ban over the opposition of the House of Lords. Labour party Ministers had proposed an amendment to delay the ban until summer 2006, but Peers in the House of Lords, intent on demonstrating their opposition to the ban regardless of when it would go into effect, rejected the amendment by a vote of 153 to 114. The use of the Parliament Act – invoked by the House of Commons for only the fourth time since its passage – means that the ban will now go into effect in early 2005, before the next election. Baroness Mallalieu, a life peer, Labour party member and outspoken opponent of the hunting ban, framed the debate as being between maintaining "our principles" or supporting what she described as a "grubby bill". The Guardian has more. Hunting supporters have promised a court challenge [PDF] to the use of the 1949 Parliament Act, saying it is invalid because it was never itself passed by the House of Lords.