UK Offence Report

Amendment of Regulation (EC) 1984/2003

regulation 3(6) of The Sea Fisheries (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

5 A person who contravenes the prohibition in paragraph 1 is guilty of an offence 6 Where a UK fishing boat lands or tranships in contravention of the prohibition in paragraph 1, the master, the owner and the charterer (if any) are each guilty of an offence. .

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 a condition of a licence, permit or consent
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 regulation 3(6)?

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes the prohibition in paragraph 1.
  2. Holding a valid licence but doing the thing it allows outside the hours, place or limits its conditions set under the Sea Fisheries (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
  3. Failing to do something a condition positively requires - a record, a notification, a monitoring step - even though the licensed activity itself is carried on properly.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

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.

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
Status not determined
Made
26 March 2024
In force from
1 April 2024
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

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

These Regulations make provision in relation to the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (“the Convention”), to which the United Kingdom is a contracting party. The United Kingdom was formerly subject to the requirements of the Convention as a member State of the European Union. Following EU exit, the UK has become a contracting party to the Convention as an independent coastal State. On IP completion day, EU law relating to the implementation of the requirements of the Convention became retained EU law in the UK. These Regulations update and amend retained EU law to account for further requirements under the Convention, to remove unnecessary provisions, to remove ambiguity in some of the retained EU law and to ensure that legislation relating to the Convention correctly implements the UK’s obligations and provides appropriate enforcement powers for the relevant UK authorities. These Regulations cover the following retained EU law— a Council Regulation (EC) No 1936/2001 laying down control measures applicable to fishing for certain stocks of highly migratory fish (EUR 2001/1936) (“Regulation 1936/2001)”. Regulation 2 removes the remaining provisions relating to the Convention from Regulation 1936/2001 as those provisions relate to bluefin tuna farming which does not form part of the UK’s fishing activity in relation to bluefin tuna. b Council Regulation (EC) No 1984/2003 introducing a system for the statistical monitoring of trade in swordfish and bigeye tuna within the Community (EUR 2003/1984) (“Regulation 1984/2003”). Regulation 3 amends Regulation 1984/2003 to ensure it correctly reflects the Convention requirements for a statistical document to accompany imports of swordfish and bigeye tuna into the UK and to include associated offence, penalty and enforcement provisions. c Regulation (EU) No 640/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a catch documentation programme for bluefin tuna Thunnus thynnus (EUR 2010/640) (“Regulation 640/2010”). Regulation 4 comprehensively updates Regulation 640/2010 to provide for the Convention requirements regarding the mandatory use of electronic bluefin tuna catch documents (whereas previously Regulation 640/2010 only provided for the old requirement to use paper catch documents). Associated offence, penalty and enforcement provisions for breaches of the new requirements are also included which follow existing enforcement provisions. The provisions of Regulation 640/2010 apply in relation to Great Britain only but the Windsor Framework (Retail Movement Scheme: Public Health, Marketing and Organic Product Standards and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023/959) apply Regulation 640/2010 in relation to the movement of certain consignments of bluefin tuna from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in accordance with the Northern Ireland Retail Movement Scheme established under the Windsor Framework. The Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023/1056) apply Northern Ireland enforcement provisions (with any necessary modifications) in respect of the application of Regulation 640/2010 to such consignments. d Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/98 on the implementation of the Union’s international obligations under the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas and the Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (EUR 2015/98) (“Regulation 2015/98”). Regulation 5 amends Regulation 2015/98 to remove provisions relating to the interaction of the landing obligation and the requirements of the Convention. This is to remove duplication with the amendments made by these Regulations to Regulation 2016/1627 (see below) whereby specific provisions relating to the interaction of the landing obligation and the requirements of the Convention have been included alongside the provisions to which they directly relate. e Regulation (EU) 2016/1627 of the European Parliament and of the Council on a multiannual recovery plan for bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean (EUR 2016/1627) (“Regulation 2016/1627”). Regulation 6 comprehensively updates Regulation 2016/1627 to ensure that it correctly reflects the UK’s obligations under the Convention and, in particular, takes account of the UK’s allocation of bluefin tuna catch quota (previously the UK was not allocated any bluefin tuna catch quota under the Convention). The amendments ensure that relevant Convention requirements will be applied to UK fishing boats fishing for bluefin tuna under the new quota allocation and include associated offence, penalty and enforcement provisions which follow existing enforcement provisions. f Regulation (EU) 2019/1154 of the European Parliament and of the Council on a multiannual recovery plan for Mediterranean swordfish (EUR 2019/1154) (“Regulation 2019/1154”). Regulation 7 revokes the substantive provisions of Regulation 2019/1154 as these relate to swordfish in the Mediterranean. g Regulation (EU) 2019/1241 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the conservation of fisheries resources and the protection of marine ecosystems through technical measures (EUR 2019/1241) (“Regulation 2019/1241”). Regulation 8 amends Regulation 2019/1241 to insert the minimum conservation reference size for bluefin tuna for consistency with minimum conservation reference sizes for other species which are included in the Regulation. In addition to amending retained EU law, these Regulations also amend the Common Fisheries Policy and Aquaculture (Amendment etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019/753) (see regulation 9) to remove an obsolete provision. An impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the public, private or voluntary sector is foreseen.

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.

Other offences in the same instrument

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 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 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