Food Standards Agency
Sunday 5 July 2009
Safer food better business banner
AZ-Directory
What's NewRSS
What is RSS?Listen
Listen to this siteTuesday 12 July 2005
In October 2003 two sets of proceedings started in the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, seeking annulment of the national domestic legislation implementing the provisions of the Food Supplements Directive (2002/46/EC).
The first set of proceedings was brought by the National Association of Health Stores and Health Food Manufacturers Association against the Secretary of State for Health and the National Assembly for Wales on 10 October 2003. The Alliance for Natural Health and Nutri-Link Ltd brought the second set against the Secretary of State for Health on 13 October 2003.
The claimants submit that the legislation is restrictive to trade in goods, is made under the wrong legal base and infringes a series of superior norms of Community law, in particular, free movement of goods, common commercial policy, general principles of proportionality, equal treatment and subsidiarity, the protection of fundamental rights and duty to give reasons.
On 30 January 2004 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales granted permission for the two sets of applicants to apply for judicial review of the domestic legislation implementing the Food Supplements Directive 2002/46/EC. The relevant domestic legislation is the Food Supplements (England) Regulations 2003, the Food Supplements (Scotland) Regulations 2003 and the Food Supplements (Wales) Regulations 2003.
In the case of both actions the judge ordered that there be a reference to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) requesting it to give a preliminary ruling on the validity of the underlying Directive. For the purposes of the ECJ, the two cases were joined by order of the President of the Court and the ECJ hearing was held on 25 January 2005.
Back to topThe (External) Advocate General's Opinion was issued on April 5 2005. This concluded that the Food Supplements Directive 2002/46/EC is invalid on the grounds that it infringes the principle of proportionality because basic principles of Community law, such as the requirements of legal protection, of legal certainty and of sound administration have not been properly taken into account.
The European Court of Justice published its judgement on 12 July 2005. This confirmed the validity of the EC Food Supplements Directive.
The (External) court judgement can be accessed here . (case numbers C-154/04/C-155/04)
Back to topDownload pdf
(pdf 45KB)Find out what our other sites have to offer