Nicholas Dobson ponders the legality of Hindu funeral pyres
Human perception inevitably filters through previous experience. Cremation is a case in point. Mention it and the municipal crematorium springs to mind. Neat flowerbeds around a tiny, tidy chapel. Piped music, a few words or eulogy and then back for some shared memories over the vol-au-vents.
But such perceptions can sometimes refract legal interpretation, which (if the Court of Appeal is right) may have caused difficulties with the first instance decision in the Hindu funeral pyres case. For on 8 May 2009 Cranston J had decided that open-air cremation is not permitted under relevant statutory provisions and that there were no counteractive human rights or other considerations.
But on 10 February 2010 the Court of Appeal took a different view, finding that the claimant’s wishes could in fact be accommodated within current law (see R (Ghai) v Newcastle City Council & Others [2010] EWCA Civ 59, [2010] All ER (D) 106 (Feb)). Lord Neuberger, master of the rolls, gave the substantive judgment with which LJJ
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