BBC radio 4 is asking people to nominate laws to repeal. Some obvious suggestions that others may choose are the Act of Union of 1707 or perhaps the Hunting With Dogs Act 2004 but I hope as many people as possible will nominate the outrageous Curd Cheese (Restriction on Placing on the Market) Regulations 2006. This, in case you missed it, is the law that bans one particular company (Bowland Dairy Products) from selling cheese. The gory details were covered in the Booker column last weekend as well as at various blogs and in the House of Lords last week, but the basic details are that
EU inspectors claimed Bowland was in violation of various hygeine and antibiotic rules
They then issued a Rapid Action Notice to all countries forbidding the sale of the company's products
The UK's FSA disagreed with the EU inspectors saying that any infractions were trivial
The EU court of first instance agred with Bowland and the FSA and required that the RAN be withdrawn
The EU then told the court to stuff its legal opinion
The EU then threatened the UK with a time and money wasting detailed audit unless it fell into line
"No person shall place on the market any curd cheese manufactured by Bowland Dairy Products Limited".
This level of micromanagement is a first and goes against British legal tradition that the law must be blind i.e. it must be general and not applicable solely to a named entity .
Blog Home : December 2006 : Permalink
