A Danish lawyer has successfully used Lego bricks to win a case involving the miscalculations of bycatch in industrial fishing. Photo: Lego
Danish lawyer, Andreas Leidesdorff, used Lego bricks to illustrate the unreasonableness of imposing fines on the fishermen in cases of miscalculations in industrial fishing.
DitAdvokathus in Ringkøbing has handled several fishing cases recently in both the District Court and most recently the Western High Court, which have all turned out in favour of the fishermen.
A common factor in all these cases has been that the fishermen have been ordered to pay significant fines for miscalculations of the catch when the Fisheries Inspection conducted its random checks of the composition of the catch.
However, with the acquittals, it has been determined that there has been no negligence on the part of the fishermen – thereby avoiding an unjust fine.
The indisputable fact has been established that whether it’s the fishermen or various authorities conducting the random checks, there will always be a margin of error.
To illustrate this in court, lawyer and partner at DitAdvokathus, Andreas Leidesdorff, had brought along some well-known Danish-designed plastic bricks from Lego.
“For the case in the High Court, I bought a box of 10,000 Lego bricks with the intention of making it clear how small a proportion of the total catch is selected as a representative sample of the total catch. The five Lego bricks out of the 10,000 represent the requirement for the sample, which is 0.5 per thousand and thus a very small part of the actual size of the catch,” he says.
“In my view, it was important to emphasise the degree of uncertainty in the sampling. Therefore, a visual representation could help shift the understanding and thus prove that the fishermen have not acted negligently but, on the contrary, followed the applicable rules in the field with the risks of miscalculations and margins of error.”
A Fairer Approach
With the recent acquittal in the Western High Court, the owner of DitAdvokathus hopes for a potential paradigm shift, so that similar cases will not arise as frequently in the future.
“The truth is that fishermen budget for this additional potential expense that they might be charged in these cases, but my hope for the future is that the Prosecution will no longer impose fines when miscalculations are detected. Simply because there is no prospect of the Prosecution winning. Because, in my view, it doesn’t make sense for fishermen to be able to count accurately but still receive a fine if and when the inspection yields a different result.”
The fishermen could potentially be punished with significant fines, making it a very, very expensive affair for the parties involved. The size of the fine is determined by the difference between the fisherman’s and the inspection’s result.
“With the recent victories in both the District Court and the High Court, I am confident that we have set a precedent for future fishing cases aimed at financially penalising innocent fishermen,” concluded Leidesdorff.
