A LACK of enthusiasm among some shopkeepers to open on a Sunday could be considered an argument for retaining the island’s convoluted trading laws.

If they don’t want it and are not going to bother opening, what’s the point in changing?

However, it is the reverse that is true.

Clearing away this incomprehensible set of laws is not meant to herald a wholesale change in islanders’ shopping habits. An unregulated Sunday will, for most people, be little different to a regulated one.

Just as many people never fill up their cars with petrol on a Sunday and others have never set foot in a pub on the Sabbath it would not be compulsory either to open a shop or go shopping.

Retailers’ reluctance to work Sundays is perfectly understandable. No one would prefer to work while others are on the beach. And shift systems inevitably mean employing more staff in a less efficient working week.

The principle that is at stake here is that shopkeepers should have the right to open if they want.

If, in their opinion, the trade is there and a profit is to be made, it should not be up to the state to put barriers in the way.

Le Friquet Garden Centre is the latest case in point. Its owners wish to open, its staff are already contracted to work weekends and its customers want to enjoy the facility in full.

For the Castel douzaine to be instructed to interpret the law in a harsh manner and shut at least part of the shop down smacks of a perverse desire to interfere rather than the upholding of a grand principle.

Sweeping away an arcane legal structure that has douzaines tied in knots and keeps Law Officers from more pressing matters such as animal welfare will not destroy the fabric of our society. Instead it will allow retailers the flexibility to decide if and when they open – free of red tape.

Then the next time cruise ships with 4,000 passengers on board drop by on a Sunday it will be easy and pain-free for retailers who want to open their doors for a few hours to do so.

Those who don’t can put their feet up.