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

12.14.00pm GMT Wed 11th Mar 2009

The EU court 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.

Liberal Democrat Members of the European Parliament have been campaigning for a number of years against secret annexes to aviation security regulations, put in place after 9/11 and after the 2006 liquids alert on London-bound planes, which contained details of the banned items, and had taken the first steps in legal action. Meanwhile an Austrian man Gottfried Heinrich was ordered to leave an aircraft at Vienna airport as his cabin baggage contained tennis racquets, 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 of Justice in Luxembourg.

West Midlands LibDem MEP Liz Lynne 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.

"Liberal Democrats 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. The Court has now agreed with our protest that it cannot be right for 500 million EU citizens to be told to obey laws 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 shortcuts through passing 'emergency' legislation. Legally binding rules need full consideration and proper publication."

ENDS