b that specified contraventions of the regulations shall be offences punishable on summary conviction by a…

article 2(2)(b) of The Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Garbage) Order 1988

• Revoked
• Strict liability
• Either way
• Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheries

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

b that specified contraventions of the regulations shall be offences punishable on summary conviction by a maximum fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or on conviction on indictment by a fine;

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds

a person

Conduct

breaching the provision

Fault element

Strict liability

Burden of proof

No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach article 2(2)(b)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Garbage) Order 1988.

Penalty

Mode of trial

Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court

Maximum fine

£2,000

Standard scale

Level 5

Maximum prison (summary)

Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1988-12-23); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean an unlimited fine.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

• Sentencing organisations: fines and the means of a corporate defendant All courts in England and Wales

  How a fine on a company is arrived at from its turnover. Relevant far beyond the guidelines that state it, because a very large share of the offences in this corpus can only be committed by an organisation.

• Environmental offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 July 2014

  Covers unauthorised or harmful deposit, treatment or disposal of waste, illegal discharges to air, land and water, and the equivalent offences committed by organisations. It is the guideline that introduced turnover bands for corporate fines, so the size of the defendant company is a starting point rather than a mitigating detail.

• Health and safety offences, corporate manslaughter and food safety and hygiene offences: definitive guideline Magistrates' courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales · in force from 1 February 2016

  Covers breaches of duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the regulations made under it, and food safety and food hygiene offences. Sentencing turns on culpability and on the seriousness and likelihood of harm risked, not only on the harm that happened.

• Imposition of community and custodial sentences: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales

  When a community order or custody is justified at all, and the presumption against short custodial sentences.

• Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 June 2017

  The sliding scale of credit for pleading guilty, from one third at the first stage of proceedings downwards.

• General guideline: overarching principles All courts in England and Wales · in force from 1 October 2019

  The guideline a court uses when there is no offence-specific guideline, which is the position for the overwhelming majority of offences created by statutory instrument. It sets out how culpability and harm are assessed from first principles.

• Totality: definitive guideline All courts in England and Wales

  How to sentence more than one offence at once so that the total is just and proportionate - frequently in point here, because regulatory prosecutions commonly charge several breaches of the same instrument.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status

Revoked

Revoked by

The Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Sewage and Garbage) Order 2006

Revoked on

12 December 2006

Made

21 December 1988

In force from

23 December 1988

Extent

Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of this Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order enables effect to be given to Annex V to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships 1973 as amended by the Protocol (Cmnd 7347) thereto of 1978. The Order empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations for the purpose of giving effect to Annex V which relates to pollution by garbage. In particular the regulations may provide for the extraterritorial operation of the regulations and the imposition of penalties.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

• North Sea Pollution Lords · 14 February 1990 · Lord Campbell of Croy

  rose to call attention to the state of the North Sea and the need to continue to prevent further pollution; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is a happy chance that success in the ballot should have steered this debate to mid-February, because the third in the series of ministerial North Sea conferences is due to take place at the Hague next month. That gives us a timely opportunity to…

• Merchant Shipping (Prevention Of Pollution By Garbage) (Amendment) Order 1993 Lords · 17 May 1993

  These two orders are necessary to amend the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Oil Pollution) Order 1983 and the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Garbage) Order 1988 and to incorporate respectively MEPC Resolutions 14(20), 42(30), 47(31), 51(32), 52(32) and 48(31) made by the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organisation. The orders will implement amendments to the…

Other offences in the same instrument

• Such regulations may in particular include provisions— a with respect to the application of the regulations…article 2(2)

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.60.

Basis

the provision says the conduct is “punishable”

Confidence

0.60 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source

• This provision on legislation.gov.uk The authoritative text. Check it before relying on anything here.
• The Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Garbage) Order 1988 Every offence this instrument creates, and its explanatory note
• Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheriesOther offences on the same subject
• Offences created in 1988