Illegal Labelling and Sales of Halal Meat and Food Products
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2008.72.3.496 |
| Author | John Pointing,Shuja Shafi,Yunes Teinaz |
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
COMMENT
Illegal Labelling and Sales of Halal Meat
and Food Products*
John Pointing,†Yunes Teinaz‡and Shuja Shafi¶
Keywords Food law; Halal; False labelling; Consumer offences;
Regulation
The regulatory problem
The position of halal foods is complicated in the UK. Both European and
domestic systems of law are involved in what has become in recent years
a highly regulated field. By contrast, religious dietary laws are ancient.1
Dietary laws and requirements in Islam require that permissible animals
are treated and slaughtered in a particular way before Muslims are
allowed to consume the resulting meat or meat products.2In recognition
of this requirement, as in many other countries, UK legislation makes
provision for religious slaughter of animals for food by exempting
Muslim and Jewish communities from a provision in the Welfare of
Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995 (as amended) that
requires all animals to be stunned before they are slaughtered.3There is,
however, no food legislation that is specific to halal.4One reason for this
is because there is no consensus within the Muslim community about
what precisely constitute halal requirements with respect to the slaugh-
ter of animals for human consumption. In particular, whether the use of
stunning prior to slaughter is allowed remains a highly controversial
issue. Much comment on this is based on scientific and religious mis-
information. This has resulted in confusion within the community and
consumer confidence is low. There is an urgent need for consensus and
clarity in respect of the definition of halal. Without this, consumer
protection will remain complicated and difficult.
Consumer law does afford some protection for those wishing to
purchase halal food and Muslim organisations have made considerable
efforts to establish a quality standard to provide food purchasers with
* An earlier version of this article was presented to the DIALREL National Meeting
on Religious Slaughter, held on 7 December 2007 at Cardiff University.
† John Pointing is a barrister and senior lecturer in law at Kingston University; e-mail
johnpointing@hotmail.com.
‡ Dr Yunes Teinaz, Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner, London Central
Mosque Trust and the Islamic Cultural Centre; e-mail dr.teinaz@tiscali.co.uk.
¶ Dr Shuja Shafi, Food Standards Committee, The Muslim Council of Britain.
1 Al-Hafiz B.A. Masri, Animal Welfare in Islam (The Islamic Foundation: Markfield,
rev. edn, 2007).
2 M. N. Riaz and M. M. Chaudry, Halal Food Production (CRC Press: Boca Raton,
2004).
3 SI 1995 No. 731, reg. 22.
4 For a general analysis of food law, see R. Malcolm and J. Pointing, Food Safety
Enforcement (Chadwick House Group Publishing: London, 2005).
206 The Journal of Criminal Law (2008) 72 JCL 206–213
doi:1350/jcla.2008.72.3.496
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