PH9: Legislation and Enforcement Flashcards
What is the difference between a law and legislation?
Law: a rule, usually made by a government, that is used to order the way in which a society behaves or the whole system of such rules
Legislation: a law or a set of laws suggested by the government and made official by the parliament
What regulations are in the Food Safety Act?
Food Hygiene Regulations 2006
The General Food Regulations 2004
What regulations and orders are in the Animal Health Act?
The Zoonoses Order 1989
The Welfare of Animals (Transport) Order 2006
The Tuberculosis Order 2007
The Bluetongue Order (Scotland) 2008
The Foot and Mouth Disease Order 2006
The Sheep and Goat (Records, Id, and Movement) Order 2007
Describe the EU Framework.
The European Parliament
THe Council of the EU (main legislative and decision-making body)
The EU Commission (driving force and executive body)
The Court of Justice
What are the different types of legislation in the EU? How do they differ?
Regulations - automatically in the UK Law
Directives - not-automatically incorporated into UK Law
Decisions - suggestions that are not legally binding in the UK Law
Recommendations and opinions
Resolutions
Trade agreements
Define harmonization.
Bringing national laws into line with one another, very often in order to remove national barriers that obstruct the free movement of workers, goods, services, and capital
Define equivalence
The capability of different systems or measures to meet the same objetives
What is the difference between vertical and horizontal legislation?
Vertical: legislation which is specific to particular species or commodities
Horizontal: legislation which is cutting across to particular operations or commodities
What is the purpose of enforcement?
- To protect public health by providing safe food
- To improve animal health and welfare
- To gain customer confidence
- To impose financial penalities to ensure the dissuasive character of the sanction
- To penalise those who breach the regulations
Who are the enforcement authorities?
Food Standards Agency = OV
Animal and Plant Health Agency = Veterinary Officers
Trading Standards Office = investigation and enforcement officers
Environmental Health Office = Environmental Health Officers
What is proportionality in enforcement concordat?
Applying the principles of risk assessment when enforcing legislation. One must focus on most serious risks - compliance in low risk activities should be encouraged
What is consistency in enforcement concordat?
Enforcement should be consistent regionally and nationally - not necessarily uniform but a similar approach.
What is the hierarchy of enforcement?
Verbal advice
Warning letter
Statutory notices
- Hygiene IMprovement Notice
- Detention of Food Notice
- Remedial Action Notice
- Hygiene Prohibition Notice
REferral for Investigation leading to prosecutions
What is a legal and evidential burden?
In all criminal proceedings, the prosecution has a legal burden to prove all elements of the offence charged and disprove any defences raised, beyond a reasonable doubt.
The prosecution also has the evidential burden to produce sufficient evidence on each element of the offence charged to justify a conviction
What is good evidence?
- Contemporaneous notes made at the time
- Photocopies of actual letters of advice/warning sent, or formal notices served
- Photographs/videos to evidence the elements of the offence
- Dead body of animals or parts of it (preserve frozen)
- Live animals
- Witnesses
- Formal documentation for evidence gathering
