The question in this appeal was whether a person who has unlawfully deposited waste without a license may refuse to provide information about his activities which has been requested pursuant to a statutory power by a local waste regulation authority on the ground that his answers may incriminate him or lead to the discovery of evidence which may be used against him in a criminal prosecution. The question was raised in the connection with the discovery of 100 tones of clinical waste stored in trailers and a warehouse without license authorizing the deposit or keeping of waste.
The House of Lords emphasized that as a matter of domestic law, the question depended upon the construction of the statute which conferred the power to require information - in this case, section 71(2) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The powers therein had been conferred for the broad public purpose of protecting the public health and the environment. Such information was often required urgently and the policy of the statute would be frustrated if the persons who knew most about the extent of the health or environmental hazard were entitled to refuse to provide any information on the ground that their answers might tend to incriminate them. The House of Lords therefore held that the terms of the section impliedly excluded self-incrimination as an excuse for refusing to answer. In a prosecution under the Act the trial judge would have discretion to exclude the answers on the ground that, having regard to the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, its admission would have an unduly adverse effect on the fairness of the trial. But the statute deprived the appellant of any privilege not to answer. He had to provide the information and take his chance on persuading the judge at the trial to exclude it.
It was submitted, however, that in this case the domestic construction of the statute was not the end of the matter. The Act of 1990 was the instrument by which the United Kingdom had given effect to the European Waste Framework Directive (91/156/E.E.C.). It therefore had to be interpreted in accordance with Community law and the provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, (1953). Article 6 of that Convention entitled the appellant to rely upon the privilege against self-incrimination to refuse to provide the requested information.
The question therefore was whether Article 6, as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights, had this effect. The House of Lords analyzed a number of Court decisions relating to this question and concluded that as the Council’s requests were requests for factual information only and none invited the admission of a wrongdoing as such, the appellants were obliged to answer the request for information. The appeal was dismissed.