WHEN the then latest revisions to Guernsey’s archaic and labyrinthine anti-Sunday trading regulations were going through the States in 2002, this newspaper had no hesitation in branding it the dog’s breakfast law.

It is one of the most pointless, tortuous pieces of legislation yet devised and the only benefit it provides is to give the bureaucrats and legal advisers more red tape to ‘interpret’ to deny people’s freedom to shop on a Sunday and restrict businesses’ opportunity to trade.

The nonsense that it represents is typified by the stand-off between the Castel douzaine and Trading Standards, acting as Commerce and Employment’s uber-enthusiastic enforcer.

When the superb Le Friquet Garden Centre opened, islanders embraced its vision, scale and opportunity and flocked to it – particularly on Sundays. It became a destination, an attraction in its own right, rather like Oatlands.

Everything was on display and for sale. No one was harmed by that but because the dog’s breakfast law exists – and possibly because a jealous competitor has complained – the dead hand of officialdom wants to squeeze the fun out of going there on a certain day of the week.

And this is the point at which islanders and taxpayers ought to become seriously alarmed.

Because the Castel douzaine – a welcome bulwark against the faceless legions of oppressive officials – has said it is content the centre does comply, it now faces the real threat of legal action to force it clamp down on the centre.

Interestingly, the route to the Royal Court would be the same, a judicial review, as that being used by a local law firm to try to indicate that a police threat to kick down its door and remove computer equipment at 3am was unnecessarily heavy-handed.

In the case of Le Friquet, of course, the same process would be used to prove that the hand of officialdom wasn’t heavy enough – and the taxpayers and ratepayers will have to pick up the cost of a pointless legal action.

Why is it even possible that this can happen? Because the dog’s breakfast law hasn’t yet been repealed – and that’s now long overdue.