R v Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food and Another, ex parte First City Trading and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 29 November 1996 |
| Date | 29 November 1996 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Queen's Bench Division
Before Mr Justice Laws
European Communities - principles of community law - applicability to domestic law
The fundamental principles of European Community law as formulated by the European Court of Justice, such as equal treatment and non-discrimination, had no application to an action or a decision taken by a member state under domestic law unless and to the extent that the decision was taken in order to implement powers or duties conferred or imposed by Community law.
Accordingly, those principles did not apply to the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food's beef stocks transfer scheme which gave effect to the Slaughtering Industry (Emergency Aid) Scheme 1996 and which, although designed to provide financial aid in response to the European Commission's decision 96/239/EC of March 27, 1996 (OJ 1996 L78/47) prohibiting the export of beef slaughtered in the United Kingdom, was not devised in order to implement Community law.
Mr Justice Laws, sitting in the Queen's Bench Division, so held, in a reserved judgment given in Leeds, dismissing an application for judicial review by frozen meat exporters, First City Trading Ltd, Meat Marketing Services (UK) Ltd, Meatal Supplies (Wholesale Meats) Ltd, Carrex August Ltd, Weddel Swift Ltd and Swallow Foods International, against the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce (IBAP), in respect of the beef stocks transfer scheme, which provided financial aid to meat exporters with slaughtering and cutting facilities in response to the Commission decision.
The applicants challenged the legality of the scheme on the ground that it discriminated unfairly and without any objective justification in favour of meat exporters with their own slaughtering and cutting-up facilities to the detriment of exporters such as the applicants without such facilities; and that the scheme was thus in breach of the fundamental principle of Community law, namely, the principle of equal treatment or non-discrimination.
Mr Nicholas Green for the applicants; Mr Kenneth Parker, QC, for MAFF and IBAP.
MR JUSTICE LAWS said that the general or fundamental principle of European Community law undoubtedly included the principle of equal treatment, or non-discrimination, requiring decision-makers to treat...
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