The Supreme Court dismissed appeals by Seamus Quinn, Darragh Quinn and Neil Tector and affirmed the High Court order refusing their applications for judicial review. The applicants had sought declarations that animal remedies regulations were beyond the powers conferred by the European Communities Act 1972, and that one provision contravened that Act.
The three appeals arose from separate proceedings seeking the same relief. Quinn and Quinn had been served with 61 and 47 summonses respectively, while Tector had been served with two. The summonses alleged breaches of provisions in the Animal Remedies Regulations 1996 and the Control of Animal Remedies and their Residues Regulations 1998, as amended. The allegations were that the conduct described constituted offences under section 20 of the Animal Remedies Act 1993, punishable under section 23. The Supreme Court judgment did not decide whether any applicant committed the alleged offences.
The applicants argued that section 8(3)(b) of the 1993 Act meant that regulations made under that Act to give effect to European Community measures should be treated as made under section 3 of the 1972 Act. They submitted that the 1972 Act barred regulations from creating indictable offences and that ambiguity in the provision should be resolved in their favour.
Justice Denham, delivering the court’s judgment on 28 November 2006, rejected that argument. The court held that section 20 of the 1993 Act expressly created the offences and that the Oireachtas, rather than the Minister, had decided that breaches of regulations made under section 8 could be tried on indictment. The regulations themselves did not create the indictable offences.
The court also found that section 8(3)(b) plainly applied the 1972 Act’s section 4 procedures for annulment of regulations. The words “as if they had been made under section 3” did not make the provision ambiguous or mean that the regulations were made under the 1972 Act. The court did not intervene in the High Court judge’s treatment of the annulment procedures.
A separate question raised in written submissions about whether regulations with statutory effect could be amended only by statute was not argued orally. The Supreme Court made no decision on it, describing it as a point that might matter in a different context. It dismissed the appeals and affirmed the High Court order.