Verifying Measures
Equipment may be submitted to an inspector for verification and testing. The inspector is to test it by reference to the Northern Ireland working and local standards. It is to be stamped provided it is accurate within the limits of error prescribed. Inspectors have to keep records of tests carried out.
There is provision for approved verifiers who may make tests and stamp equipment. They may be approved in relation to equipment for a particular class or description. Where an inspector refuses to pass equipment, a statement of reasons is to be given.
If the Department is satisfied that equipment has been duly stamped in accordance with the law of Great Britain, or the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, it may treat it as duly stamped in Northern Ireland.
Persons may be approved by the Department for the purpose of testing equipment of a type approved, which is manufactured, installed, or repaired by them. Passing any such equipment as fit for trade or stamping such equipment with a prescribed stamp. This applies to persons, whether in Northern Ireland or elsewhere, as manufacturers, installers, or repairers of weighing and measuring equipment.
The Department must be satisfied that they comply with the provisions of the legislation and are fit and proper persons to be approved. The Department may carry out audits and inspections of the systems and procedures to establish that the conditions of approval will be observed.
There is provision for an official EEA tester. It applies where equipment has been tested by an official EEA tester at any time. The test report of the EEA test is submitted to the inspector, and the report sets out the result.
The provisions regarding approval of measuring and weighing equipment allow the inspector to rely on the test report of the official EEA tester. An official EEA tester is an entity with responsibility in the EEA (EU plus EFTA) for the metrological control of equipment of that description or is accredited in an EEA state as a person operating a laboratory, in conformity with criteria set out in the applicable European standard for the purpose of testing equipment of that type.
Where any pattern of weighing or measuring equipment is submitted to the Department, the Department is to examine its suitability for use for trade of equipment of that pattern, having regard in particular, to the principal materials and methods used or proposed to be used in its construction.
If the Department is satisfied, it is suitable for use for trade, it shall issue a certificate of approval of that pattern and cause particulars of that pattern to be published. It may be approved subject to conditions. The certificate may be renewed or revoked. It may only be used for trade or possessed for such use in accordance with the certificate. Contravention is an offence. Insert above, provision for renewal.
Equipment of a pattern in respect of which a certificate of approval has been granted is to be marked in a prescribed manner to identify it with the pattern in question.
The Department may make regulations prescribing general specifications for the construction of weighing and measuring equipment. Equipment must conform to the specifications. Equipment must conform to the specification or with the pattern in respect of which a certificate of approval is in force. The certificate of approval may be confirmed as conforming to the prescribed standard. It may, instead of issuing a certificate of approval, publish a declaration in the official Gazette.
The Department may make regulations in relation to the materials and principles of construction of weighing and measuring equipment for use in trade, for inspection, testing, and passing of the same for use for trade and stamping, conditions relative to stamps, purposes for which the equipment may be used for trade, manner of installation and erection, abbreviations and symbols which may be used.
Regulations for the testing of equipment may provide for testing of samples of groups of items of equipment. Provision may be made for the Department to authorize a dispensation with any requirement which appears impracticable or unnecessary.
An approved verifier, who is a manufacturer of weighing and measuring equipment, may apply the prescribed stamp if he is satisfied on reasonable grounds it will not be used unless either the equipment has been passed as fit for use by trade or the stamp has been destroyed, defaced, or obliterated. The prescribed stamp must include the approved verifier’s number.
A prescribed stamp above shall have effect at any time before the equipment is passed as fit for trade as an indication that at the time of stamping, the approved verifier was satisfied above and at any time after the equipment was so passed, as evidence of the passing of the equipment as fit for use. Where the equipment is passed as fit for use, a further stamp is not required.
Where the approved verifier fails to pass as fit for use for trade equipment with which the prescribed stamp has been applied, he may remove the stamp.
It is an offence to falsely apply a stamp, forge, counterfeit, alter, or deface a stamp, remove it or replace it on other equipment, alter it or tamper with it with the means by which it is attached. The offence does not apply to anything done in the course of adjustment, repair, by duly authorised agents of the manufacturers. It is an offence to use equipment with a false, forged, altered, or counterfeited stamp.The equipment is liable to forfeiture on conviction.
It is an offence to possess, use for trade, any weighing or measuring equipment, false or unjust. It is a defence to show that he used the same only in the course of employment by another and he neither knew nor reasonably could have known or suspected that the equipment was false or unjust. The equipment is liable to be forfeited.
The person shall attend to weighing or measuring by means of weighing and measuring equipment available to the public and as he holds a certificate from the Chief Inspector that he has sufficient knowledge of the proper performance of his duty. A person refused a certificate may appeal to the County Court. Contravention is an offence.
District councils may provide and maintain public weighing and measuring equipment as appear expedient. It may employ a process to attend the weighing and measuring by means of such equipment.
Except in the case of weighing or measuring for which, under any other enactment, charges are regulated, it may make charges as it thinks fit. There are offences in connection with mischiefs of publicly provided weighing equipment.