Humphrey v. Minister for Environment and Local Government. Country/Territory Ireland Type of court National - higher court Date Oct 13, 2000 Source UNEP, InforMEA Court name High Court of Ireland Judge Murphy. Reference number [2000] IEHC 149 Language English Subject Environment gen., Legal questions Keyword Waste management Transport/storage Abstract The Road Traffic (Public Service Vehicles) (Amendment) Regulations, 2000 were made in January 2000 to provide for the early grant of some 3,100 new taxi licences in the Dublin Taximeter Area. High Court judicial review proceedings were initiated by a number of individuals in February 2000, as the proposal to increase the number of taxis by adding vehicles to existing taxi licences was challenged by hackney drivers of private hire vehicles. The present judgement struck down the regulations made in relation to Dublin taxis and created the legal position that limitation of taxi licences in the interests of existing licence holders cannot be contemplated and questioned the general imposition of quantitative controls on taxi licences including the use of the points criteria to assess licence applications and the delegation of certain functions to local authorities. In his taxi deregulation judgement in the High Court stated that “ a quantitative restriction not alone affects the rights of citizens to work in an industry for which they may be qualified but it also manifestly affects the rights of the public to the services of taxis, and, indeed, restricts the development of the taxi industry itself The " taxi case" raised a significant question mark over the constitutionality, and compatibility with the EC Treaty, of the quantitative restrictions of the 1932 Act. In the Taxi Case, Justice Murphy commented on the significance of EC-based legal arguments in the challenge to the taxi licensing regime in Dublin. In particular, Justice Murphy questioned whether such a licensing regime was compatible with Article 86 EC, which governs the conditions under which the rules of the EC Treaty, including EC competition rules, apply to certain categories that enjoy a privileged status under national law. Also the scheme purportedly put in place by (Statutory Instrument) 2/2000 may very well indirectly discriminate against Member States of the European Union other than Ireland in a manner which is prohibited by Article 12 of the EC Treaty. By restricting the grant of new licences to this category of persons, the Minister is effectively precluding nationals of other EU Member States from becoming the owners of new taxi licences in Ireland. Full text COU-156492.pdf