Compassion In World Farming Ltd. v Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

A Member State has discretion under Article 249 EC to choose the form and method by which a Directive expressed in general and unquantifiable terms is implemented. The court assesses the whole implementation system, including legislation, codes, inspection, guidance and sanctions, rather than requiring verbatim transposition. A requirement that owners and keepers take all reasonable steps may adequately implement such a Directive and need not create strict-liability offences.

Restricted feeding of broiler breeders is not unlawful in itself. Compliance with welfare duties requires an evidence-based assessment of health, nutritional needs and wellbeing, including the competing consequences of ad libitum feeding. Intensive farming is not inherently unlawful, and the Directive does not require an absolute preference for animal welfare over legitimate commercial considerations.

The claimant, an animal-welfare organisation, sought judicial review of the defendant’s implementation and enforcement of Council Directive 98/58/EC concerning animals kept for farming purposes.

It challenged the use of Regulation 3(2) of the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2000, arguing that the Directive required an unqualified obligation to ensure compliance with its Annex. It also argued that restricted feeding of broiler breeder chickens breached paragraph 22 of Schedule 1 and that the defendant’s policy of not prosecuting such practices was unlawful. The claimant abandoned the separate burden-of-proof ground.

The central issues were whether the domestic implementation secured the Directive’s objectives and whether restricted feeding, assessed against animal health and welfare evidence, was unlawful.

1. Implementation of the Directive. The claim that Regulation 3(2) inadequately implemented Article 4 failed. The Directive expressed objectives in general and unquantifiable terms. A Member State therefore retained discretion to select the form and method of implementation, provided that the Directive was fully secured in fact and in law.
2. The relevant question was whether the whole domestic system achieved that result. It was legitimate to place duties on owners and keepers requiring them to take all reasonable steps to secure compliance with Schedule 1. The qualification did not derogate from the Directive’s objective. The system included criminal sanctions, statutory welfare codes, inspection, advice, guidance, veterinary supervision and enforcement procedures.
3. The court rejected the proposed distinction between an “end result” and a “conduct result” as demonstrating defective transposition. The state of affairs required by the Directive was distinct from the methods by which the State was permitted to achieve it. The breadth and uncertainty of many Annex concepts also justified avoiding strict-liability offences. The common-law presumption against strict liability and the requirement of certainty in criminal offences supported that conclusion.
4. Restricted feeding. Paragraph 22 of Schedule 1 did not establish that broiler breeders had to be fed ad libitum. Hunger was a physiological state and could not be assessed solely by comparing feed intake with unrestricted consumption. The evidence showed that unrestricted feeding could cause serious health and reproductive problems, while restricted feeding could support weight gain, reproductive capacity and essential bodily functions.
5. The proper assessment required attention to the limited and purposeful period of restriction, the nutritional quality and sufficiency of the diet, weight gain, the absence of compromised essential bodily functions, the absence of starvation, available methods of reducing hunger, and continuing research. The evidence did not establish that restricted feeding compromised wellbeing or breached paragraph 22.
6. Intensive farming was not unlawful in itself. The Convention, Protocol and Directive contemplated minimum welfare standards within a regulated market, not an absolute rule requiring the commercial system to end whenever adverse welfare consequences were identified. The judicial review application failed.