Chagos Islanders 1, Empire’s Poodle 0

Families expelled from the Chagos Islands by the British Government to make way for the Diego Garcia US airbase today won their legal battle to return home.
The families and well-wishers packed the Court of Appeal for a ruling which condemned Government tactics stopping their return as unlawful and an abuse of power.
Three judges headed by the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, refused a stay on the effect of their judgment, allowing the islanders to return to their Indian Ocean homes immediately.
The only island they will not be able to resettle under original High Court orders allowing their return, will be Diego Garcia itself.-

Sort of an Eden type deal, Diego Garcia is still forbidden, but it’s quite a smackdown to our US client state govt.

Lord Justice Sedley, giving the lead ruling today, said the method used by the Government to stop the islanders returning – making an Order in Council under the Royal Prerogative – was unlawful and an abuse of power by the Government executive.

Lord Justice Waller said the decision had been taken by a Government minister “acting without any constraint”.
“Indeed, the Crown may be doing something that, if she only knew the true position, she would prefer not to do, and yet it is then said that the Government can hide behind the ‘Crown’s prerogative’.”

Richard Gifford, the solicitor for the islanders, said in a triumphant speech outside the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, that the appeal judges had thrown out the Government’s appeal against a High Court ruling which cancelled two laws passed by “secret order-in-council procedure”.
“It has been held that the ties which bind a people to its homeland are so fundamental that no Executive Order can lawfully abrogate those rights”.-

Short version, what they did was criminal and dressing it up in legalese and Royal prerogative doesn’t change that. Take that yer bastards.