This is yet another example of what is wrong with one world government.
The following story appeared in the Associated Press today.
Apr 9, 2001 - 04:02 PM
Produce Vendor Is Found Guilty in 'Metric Martyr' Case
By Laura King
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - Greengrocer Steven Thoburn fought the system - the metric system, that is. And lost.
On Monday, the 36-year-old fruit-and-vegetable vendor - dubbed the "Metric Martyr" by the British tabloids - was found guilty of selling his wares in pounds and ounces, without the metric measures mandated by European law. It was the first prosecution of its kind in Britain.
Thoburn, whose plight generated a groundswell of public support, now faces a maximum fine of $1500 on each of two offenses, and court costs that could run as high as $90,000. He was also put on six months' conditional discharge, which is similar to probation in the United States.
The Sunderland Magistrates Court convicted Thoburn of breaching the Weights and Measures Act in a case the judge had described as centering on the "most famous bunch of bananas in legal history."
Well-wishers flocked to Sunderland, a small city 275 miles north of London, to show their support. Even the judge was sympathetic.
"I accept he is a decent hardworking man and he did what he did because he believed he was right," Judge Bruce Morgan told the court. But, he added, "it would destroy the concept of a (European) union if member states could go off on legislative frolics of their own."
The greengrocer's woes began when trading-standards officers raided his market stall in July of last year, seizing two sets of scales. The case quickly became a cause celebre, used as a platform by vocal critics of European Union bureaucracy.
From the beginning, the case was about much more than pounds and kilograms. It has pointed up Britain's ambivalence about its increasingly close relationship with Europe and all that will eventually entail, affecting everything from monetary policy to military matters.
The United Kingdom Independence Party, a group which lobbies against greater powers for the European Union, denounced the court decision.
"It authorizes the continued bullying of the nation's shopkeepers, and is a terrible blow to our personal freedoms," it said in a statement. "Britain's destiny as a mere province of the coming European mega-state has taken a giant step nearer."
Thoburn's attorney had cited a British law allowing shopkeepers to use either metric or imperial units should take precedence over a European Union directive - later adopted by Parliament - which requires loose goods to be sold in metric measures.
Prosecutors say the law, which took effect a year ago, states clearly that vendors must use the metric system when selling produce. Customers may ask for goods any way they want, and produce can be labeled in both metric and imperial, but shopkeepers are required to sell in kilos and grams.
The anti-metric camp says this court defeat could threaten such traditions as the pint of beer, the mile, and the pint of milk - all of which are currently protected. But prosecutors said European laws would be honored, and dissenters like Thoburn could look to be hauled into court.
"We are not, as has been suggested, living in a United Kingdom which is sovereign in the classic British empire 19th century way," said prosecutor Eleanor Sharpston.
Thoburn's attorney, leading constitutional