The prosecution had three charges against an animal transporter and wanted to revoke his right to transport animals in all three charges. But after four years, all charges were dropped.
Effektivt Landbrug, September 2, 2023
“- Good job that the prosecution drops the cases that cannot stand.”
So says associate and junior partner Rikke Bach Nielsen from the law firm Sønderby Legal, following the prosecution’s abandonment of a series of charges against a Jutland animal transporter, who can now finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The transporter now appears on the increasingly long list of cases concerning alleged violations of EU rules, which the prosecution has had to abandon in relation to citizens and companies represented by Sønderby Legal.
– 96 cases won out of 99 since August 1, 2021, according to the law firm’s own statement, and the animal transporter is one of the 96 cases won.
Accused three times and dropped
Sønderby Legal states that the cases against the transporter started in 2019, and that the transporter originally had as many as three charges against him, where the prosecution in all three cases wanted to revoke his right to transport animals. They thus wanted to deprive him of his entire livelihood three times, but all three charges against him have now been dropped.
– One of the charges concerned load density on a transport back in the spring of 2019, where things came to a head, and it could easily have ended as yet another inflated story about animal abuse on the front page of national media.
– But the case turned out to be quite different. For it turned out that there was no violation of the rules for load density at all, explains Rikke Bach Nielsen from Sønderby Legal.
Overload was not overload after all
Rikke Bach Nielsen explains that the veterinarian who carried out the inspection when unloading the pigs at the slaughterhouse was mistaken about how many pigs were allowed on the truck. The veterinarian believed there was an overload of 104 pigs, which corresponds to an exceedance of the load density of approximately 21 percent, but this was because the veterinarian had used a so-called interpolation table in the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration’s guidance, but that this is not according to the rules:
– But according to the Penal Code, you cannot be convicted of something that is stated in a guide. It must appear in a law or regulation, she says, adding that this was also established by the High Court of Western Denmark as early as 2010.
Rikke Bach Nielsen further explains that in the regulation, which lays down the requirements for load density, the area requirements were laid down for weight classes in intervals, while the load density in the interpolation table in the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration’s guidance was calculated kg for kg.
Practice established in previous judgments
– Already in 2010, the High Court of Western Denmark established in two judgments that when the animals’ average weight lies between two intervals, the lowest must be used, says Rikke Bach Nielsen, and continues:
– And since the average weight of the pigs did not reach the higher interval, the smallest should therefore be used, she says, referring to the High Court of Western Denmark’s statement:
«As stated, the regulation specifies the area requirements for pigs at 25, 50, 75, 100, 200 and 250 kg or more, respectively. A natural understanding of the regulation’s rules on area requirements leads – as stated in the High Court of Western Denmark’s judgment of September 2, 2010 in case V.L. S-0456-10 – to the fact that the first position of 0.20 m2 applies to pigs weighing 25 kg or more, but less than 50 kg, while its next position of 0.31 m2 applies to pigs weighing 50 kg or more but less than 75 kg. On this basis, and as there is no legal basis in § 10 of the regulation on area requirements to carry out linear interpolation for animals with a weight that lies between the specified intervals, the High Court finds that it is contrary to the regulation to set the area requirements for pigs in the interval between 25-49 kg to more than 0.2 m2 per pig»
The case cut to the bone
The transporter believed that the veterinarian had overlooked other things that should also have led to acquittal, and therefore Sønderby Legal initially tried to have the case dismissed by the court:
– We did not get support for that, but the court hearing nevertheless led to the case being cut to the bone, so that in the end we only had the question of interpreting two of the High Court of Western Denmark’s judgments left. And when we got there, we knew that we would get him completely out of it, says Rikke Bach Nielsen.
She points out that it would have saved the public unnecessary resources and a righteous animal transporter sleepless nights and inhuman pressure if they had chosen to investigate the case thoroughly from the beginning before a police report was filed.
– But they didn’t, but at least it’s good that the prosecution finally dropped the cases that cannot stand anyway, she says.
