76In that context, it must be concluded that, if the competent authority were not able to take measures against foot-and-mouth disease unless all potentially concerned parties had previously been given the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the facts and documents on which those measures are based and had expressed a view on those facts and documents, that authority could be prevented from acting promptly and effectively. Accordingly, the protection of public health justifies, in principle, that that authority adopts those measures, even without first obtaining the views of interested parties on the elements on which the measures are based. Such a restriction would, moreover, be a disproportionate and intolerable intervention infringing upon the very substance of the rights of the defence only if the interested parties were given no opportunity to contest those measures in subsequent proceedings and to make their views known effectively at that stage.
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