Euro-judges strike down secret law banning tennis rackets and drinks on planes

11.24.00am GMT Wed 11th Mar 2009

Sarah Ludford MEP

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has ruled that a challenge to secret EU laws should succeed. It said that bans on taking prohibited item like weapons and liquids on planes can have no legal force if they are not published.

Lib Dem Members of the European Parliament have been campaigning for a number of years against secret annexes to aviation security regulations. These annexes which were put in place after 9/11 and after the 2006 liquids alert on London-bound planes, contain the details of the banned items.

The Lib Dem MEPs were the first to raise the issue of the secret annex bans as well as the proposal to introduce body scanners at EU airports, and had taken the first steps in legal action.

Meanwhile Gottfried Heinrich, an Austrian, was ordered to leave an aircraft at Vienna airport because his cabin baggage contained tennis rackets, deemed apparently to count as a weapon in the 'bludgeons' category of 'blackjacks, billy clubs, baseball clubs or similar instruments'. He went to court and the case ended up with the European Court.

Sarah Ludford MEP, Lib Dem Justice & Home Affairs spokeswoman, said: "This categorical judgment is a victory for democracy and openness, and a slap in the face of the European Commission and EU governments who thought Kafkaesque methods acceptable."

"The Court has now agreed with our protest that it cannot be right for 500 million EU citizens to be told to obey laws that they cannot read for themselves."

"Today's ruling adds to pressure that the European Parliament has already exerted through resolutions and legal argument, to put the Commission and Council of Ministers on notice that they cannot take short cuts through passing 'emergency' legislation. Legally binding rules need full consideration and proper publication."