R. v. Secretary of State For Health Ex Parte Imperial Tobacco Limited, et al.

The European Parliament and Council passed a Directive which effectively required all Member States to prohibit all forms of tobacco advertising and sponsorship in the European Union. Subsequently, the United Kingdom published proposed regulations intended to give the Directive direct effect in that country. However, before the United Kingdom implemented the legislation, Germany and several tobacco companies challenged the validity of the Directive, as well as the United Kingdom Secretary of State’s decision to implement it domestically, arguing that the Directive was improperly passed as a public health measure and not for the protection of Europe’s internal market. A United Kingdom trial court judge prohibited the Secretary of State from implementing the Directive until the European Court of Justice (ECJ) could determine its validity. The Court of Appeal set the injunction aside. Although the ECJ eventually held that the Directive exceeded the European Community’s scope of legislative authority, the applicants asked the United Kingdom House of Lords to decide whether a national judge had the power to intervene in the adoption of national regulations intended to give effect to a community directive where parties had challenged the validity of the directive. This House of Lords considered, but did not provide a final decision on that procedural question.     

R. v. Secretary of State For Health Ex Parte Imperial Tobacco Limited, et al., [2000] UKHL 60, House of Lords (2000).

  • United Kingdom
  • Dec 7, 2000
  • House of Lords
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Parties

Plaintiff

  • 3 other tobacco companies (unnamed)
  • Imperial Tobacco Limited

Defendant

  • Others
  • Secretary of State for Health

Legislation Cited

International/Regional Instruments Cited

Related Documents

Type of Litigation

Tobacco Control Topics

Substantive Issues

Type of Tobacco Product

None

"I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speeches of my noble and learned friends Lord Slynn of Hadley and Lord Hoffmann. Lord Hoffmann is of the view that, where the validity of a directive is challenged before the date prescribed for its implementation, Community law is inapplicable on an application to a national court for interim relief. There is force in his reasoning, but I am not persuaded this can be regarded as acte claire. A directive has immediate legal effect according to its tenor. Hence, Community law does not require uniform application of the directive before the implementation date. During the prescribed implementation period member states are not in breach by failing to transpose the directive into national law. Thus, an order by a national court suspending reliance on an impugned directive during the implementation period does not put a member state in breach of its obligations under Community law. In the sense, therefore, of absence of breach of the directive, Community legal order is not affected if a member state, through its courts or any other of its institutions, delays implementation within the implementation period. But in another, broader, sense Community legal order is affected, or may be regarded as affected, by such a suspension, because the decision of the national court does interfere with the operation of the directive in a member state during the implementation period. The court order precludes the operation of the directive as a valid directive. I have found myself compelled therefore to reach the same conclusion as Lord Slynn. Had it been necessary to give judgment on this appeal, it would have been necessary for the House to refer a question to the European Court. I have reached this conclusion with reluctance, because it means that the present appeal will not provide the answer to an important question of law."