Unpopular Sounds fisheries rule gets its day in court
An unpopular Marlborough Sounds fisheries regulation – known as “The Slot” – has gone on trial as a test case in the Christchurch District Court.
The trial was a good natured 90min hearing without villains and victims, except possibly for the blue cod which was going to end up filleted, battered, and fried.
Judge John Strettell reserved his decision but undertook to give it before the blue cod fishing season opens in the Marlborough Sounds on December 19.
There was no dispute about the evidence and it was all admitted by consent – handed to the judge in written form – at the trial of airline pilot Matthew Quentin Cox who denies a charge of possessing blue cod which was not whole or gutted on the Marlborough Sounds.
Cox wants the issue sorted out because he wants to know whether he can transport filleted blue cod from his family’s bach on Queen Charlotte Sound by boat. The bach has no road access.
There was a strong hint that the Ministry of Primary Industries does not seek to have a penalty imposed on Cox. Prosecutor Grant Fletcher told the judge: “The Ministry does not see Mr Cox as a bad man and this is indeed a test case. Your Honour can draw whatever you like from that.”
Cox represented himself at the hearing, with a court-appointed amicus curiae (friend of the court), Kerry Cook, to discuss legal issues.
On August 26, 2012, after landing at Waikawa Marina, Cox admitted having blue cod fillets in a vehicle, after the fish had been transported by water. The regulations forbid anyone having filleted blue cod on the Marlborough Sounds because fisheries officers are unable to tell from the fillets whether the fish was of a legal size.
Mr Fletcher said the written evidence included a fisheries scientist explaining the reasons for the highly unpopular fisheries measures being imposed in the sounds to reduce the amount of fish being taken. The fishery was closed for four years, and then new regulations came into force creating “The Slot” which meant only cod between 30cm and 35cm in length could be landed. There were scientific reasons for that, in terms of the way cod bred.
Cox had been on a 10-day fishing holiday with his family and they were returning from the bach when they were stopped. He said the cod had been caught in two 10-hour fishing trips in his father’s boat. They were of the correct size and had been landed whole as required and then filleted at the bach. At the end of the holiday the remaining filleted cod had been taken away in the boat “to provide one more meal for my family”, Cox told the court.
He told the court he knew of the regulation but also wanted the matter sorted out.
The case may come down to whether fish that has been landed legally and then processed and frozen has become “food” rather than “fish”, and may be transported.
If the bach had road access, the fish could have been transported by car without an issue. “I was stopped 10km down the road. It just happened that my car was a boat,” Cox said. He said that the fish could also have been carried legally by helicopter away from his bach.
Mr Cook said there was “not much else” Cox could have done, but Mr Fletcher said he should have tailored his fishing and filleting to what was required for consumption, and left the remaining fish whole or gutted for transport at the end of the holiday so that it could be measured.
The regulations were important for the sustainability of the fishery, he said.
Mr Cook noted that Parliament’s regulations did allow filleting of the fish if it was aboard the boat where it was caught, and where it was going to be cooked and eaten on that boat.
Judge Strettell made the point that it was an offence of strict liability where people could breach the regulation even if they did not intend to.
He said: “To ensure that the fish remains an available resource, we need to be able to manage it and ensure that people comply with the regulations.”
Category: News
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