High Court decides to refer fishing quota question to EU court

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The High Court decided to refer a question about the validity of an EU fishing quota regulation to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a judgment delivered on 8 February 2022 by Mr Justice Barr. Friends of the Irish Environment CLG had challenged whether the 2020 fishing limits complied with the Common Fisheries Policy.

The court found that the challenge was moot because the 2020 regulation and related fisheries management notices had expired, but allowed it to proceed. It said there were serious doubts about the regulation’s legality and gave the parties four weeks to agree a question for the CJEU or propose their own wording in written submissions.

The judge said the court could not determine the other grounds of challenge at that stage. The validity of the fisheries management notices would depend to a large extent on the validity of the regulation under which they were made.