Does banning political adverts on television breach freedom of expression laws? Neil Parpworth reports
Section 321(2) of the Communications Act 2003 (CA 2003) prohibits political advertising on the television. In the recent case of R (on the application of Animal Defenders International) v Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport [2008] UKHL 15, [2008] All ER (D) 155 (Mar) the House of Lords was required to determine a leapfrog appeal from a decision of the Divisional Court in which that court had refused to declare the provision incompatible with Art 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention): (see [2006] EWHC 3069 (Admin), [2006] All ER (D) 30 (Dec)).
It should be noted, in passing, that the appellants did not pursue an alternative claim before the Divisional Court to the effect that the provisions containing the prohibition should be “read down” under s 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998) since it was common ground that the wording of CA 2003, s 321 was clear.
The Facts
