mad:
In your counties is it different? maybe with common law, different from our civil law system you don't need a national law, do you?
Ciao
In the U.S., the legal hierarchy is something like this:
1. Treaties and Conventions (law controlling U.S. vis-a-vis other nations
2. Federal Law (national law controlling its citizens and residents)
3. State law (law of each state)
4. County law (law of counties within each state)
5. Municipal law (law of cities within each county)
Those laws are divided into civil, criminal and quasi-criminal (ordinances and the like) matters.
Our civil law is divided into statutory law and common law (judge-made).
Our diving certifications are observed on sort of a common law basis, which means that the possession, or lack thereof, would likely only be relevant in a civil case to whether a defendant was acting prudently. For example if a dive shop filled tanks or a dive charter took on divers without checking C-cards and then someone got hurt, the failure to check the C-card would be used as an act of negligence to bring the shop/charter into the line of causation.
Governmental bodies make laws under their "police powers" which exist to protect the public's health and welfare. They are reluctant to (and constitutionally prohibited from) make statutory law without a significant public health interest.
For example if one person decides to tie helium balloons to a lawn chair in an attempt to fly (I did not make this up) and kills himself, it is unlikely the legislature would convene to draft a law against it. But if there was a trend and a good part of the public starting forming helium lawn chair flying clubs, resulting in death, injuries (increased insurance claims and hospital bills, reduction in the work force, and other social ills) then the government would likely act in the public interest, by either prohibiting or regulating the practice.
Failing governmental action, risky activities are usually controlled by Darwin's theory (survival of the fittest and smartest) and by (you all are going to love this one) personal injury lawyers, whose cases establish common law standards of negligence and thus dictate standards of care.
I would think that most divers, and related dive business prefer self policing as opposed to governmental regulation.
But that's just my .02 psi.
Theresa :dazzler1: