The Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Satellite Monitoring Measures) (Scotland) Order 2000 Amendment Regulations 2001

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Satellite Monitoring Measures) (Scotland) Order 2000 (“the Order”), which contains provisions for the enforcement of European Community legislation requiring satellite monitoring of the position of fishing boats above a certain size.

The amendments made by these Regulations make two principal changes to the Order. Firstly regulation 5 amends article 3 of the Order, which creates obligations relating to the installation and operation of satellite tracking devices, by clarifying the requirement in article 3(3)(b) to maintain the satellite tracking device fully operational. In particular the amendments make it clear that no breach of that requirement occurs either when the satellite tracking device is switched off in port under conditions permitted by the relevant EC legislation or if there is a technical fault or non-function when the boat is in port or when the temporary period for which the relevant EC legislation allows fishing with a defective device has not yet expired. Regulation 5 imposes an additional requirement that, at any time when a British fishing boat is at sea, if the tracking device on board is not working as required by article 3 of the Order the required positional information must be provided every two hours to the United Kingdom’s Fisheries Monitoring Centre by telex, fax, telephone or radio.

Secondly regulation 9, which amends article 8 of the Order, confers an additional enforcement power on a British sea-fishery officer in a case where there has been a failure of operation of the satellite tracking device on board a Scottish or relevant British fishing vessel. The officer may serve a notice requiring the boat to remain in port until the expiry of a 24 hour monitoring period, during which the satellite tracking device must be set so as to broadcast the required position information every two hours (every hour in the case of a device which is not designed to be capable of being polled by the Monitoring Centre).

Other amendments made by the Regulations are consequential. They include the revocation by regulation 6 of a ground of defence to certain criminal proceedings which has become obsolete following the changes made to article 3 of the Order, subject to a saving.