Under the European Union law on common markets, all the members are required to implement laws into their constitutions that uphold the agreed policies passed by the community. Likewise, laws enacted by the European court should be adopted into law by member countries and not be seen as mere substantive procedures. Therefore, the members are supposed to implement laws that reflect on the acts and policies set by the community and not set up other laws that might be similar to it but undermine the authority of the law1.
The European Union implemented a common fisheries policy whose function was to create a common market where member states would have free access to members’ waters for fishing purposes. Since the U.K is a member of the European Union it should have embraced the policy fully as dictated by the European Union into its law. The U.K in its implementation of the policy enacted other laws which went against the spirit of the European Union. By doing so the U.K parliament said it was acting in its sovereign powers and that it was superior to the European community this resulted in a breach in the European community laws set by the Economic committee 2
After the implementation of the policy on common fisheries, the U.K later adopted another law that was referred to as Merchant Shipping Act, 1988. This law prevented member states vessels from accessing the U.K waters. Under the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 and part VII of the Merchant s
Shipping Regulations, 1988 only ships with genuine ties to the U.K were allowed to access the waters. Therefore, even ships that were flying the British flag but were not genuinely British owned were barred by this law 3
For vessels to access the waters they had to fulfill three conditions which were in contradiction to the European economic policy, they included, that fishing vessels had to be British owned, the vessels management and operations were to be based in the U.K and finally the operator of the vessels had to be a British citizen. This new law brought in a contentious issue since the act was in contradiction with the provisions of the European Union community. The U.K law placed stringent measures on ships fishing in its territorial waters which affected ships belonging to member states. Under the community law ships belonging to member states were exempt from laws barring them from using member states’ fishing waters. From this U.K directive, a lot of the people who relied on the U.K fishing grounds were automatically barred from fishing thereby cutting their source of livelihood4
Due to the U.K laws which were enacted by the parliament, there arose a conflict between the EEC and the U.K laws; this is, between the right of a state to regulate its merchant vessels and the rights conferred by the EEC treaty on individuals. Hence, individuals who entered into the U.K territorial waters without authority but relying on the EEC treaty would find themselves in trouble since under the EEC they were legally in the fishing waters, but under the U.K laws they had committed an illegal act 5
This can be seen in the Factortame case. Whereby, the U.K court confirmed its contradiction in applying laws set by its parliament to those set by the European Union economic committee. The litigation was very lengthy and was appealed severally in different courts of superior authority. Finally, the European Union law was passed to be superior to the U.K national laws. However, this ruling did not settle the issue as the U.K parliament insisted that it was superior to all community laws. Therefore, the applicants sought to have the directive expunged since it had affected their source of livelihood and furthermore, it was discriminatory on grounds of an individual’s nationality which went against the European Union laws.
Reference list
Hanson, H., 2003, Legal Method & Reasoning. 2nd ed. London: Routledge Cavendish.
Hellenic Resources Network, 1995. Council of Europe: the European Convention on Human Rights. Web.
Humphreys, M. & Margot, H. 2006 European Union law. Oxford university press: London, U.K.
Weatherill, S. 2007. Cases and materials on EU law. Oxford University Press: London U.K.
Footnotes
- Humphreys, M. & Margot, H. 2006 European Union law. Oxford university press: London, U.K.
- Hanson, H., 2003, Legal Method & Reasoning. 2nd ed. London: Routledge Cavendish.
- Hellenic Resources Network, 1995. Council Of Europe: the European Convention on Rights. Web.
- Weatherill, S. 2007. Cases and materials on EU law. Oxford University Press: London U.K.