By Liz Townsend
British pro-lifers won an important victory last month when a European court upheld their right to inform voters of candidates' positions on life issues. The court's February 19 decision found that a 1983 British law severely restricted free speech, violating the terms of a human rights agreement binding on members of the Council of Europe.
"We're absolutely delighted," Phyllis Bowman, executive director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), told NRL News. "We have always maintained that it is a basic civil right to be able to tell voters how candidates intend to vote. Obviously the European Court of Human Rights agreed with us."
SPUC brought the case to the European court after Bowman was charged with violating a British law restricting citizens to spending only five pounds in support of a particular candidate in an election.
(In England the Prime Minister announces the date of general elections four to six weeks before polling day; the funding restrictions take effect after the election date is announced.)
SPUC had distributed 25,000 leaflets outlining candidates' positions on life issues immediately prior to an April 1992 parliamentary election. The government asserted that the descriptions of the candidates' voting records were intended to encourage votes for the pro-life candidate specifically, thus violating the law since more than five pounds (about $8.50 in April 1992) was spent to print and distribute the leaflets.
The Court of Human Rights decides cases under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, a document signed by members of the Council of Europe, including the United Kingdom. Its decisions are binding on the council members that have signed the convention, and a Committee of Ministers makes sure the decisions are implemented.
Before a case gets to the court, it has to be argued in front of the European Commission for Human Rights, which decides whether a case falls under the jurisdiction of the Court of Human Rights. The commission, voting 28-1, agreed that the British government violated Bowman's freedom of expression, which is described in the human rights convention as "freedom to hold opinions and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."
The Court of Human Rights, with a vote of 14-6, affirmed the commission's conclusions, insisting that governments should not place undue barriers to their citizens' right to express their views, especially when important decisions are being made at election time. "Free elections and freedom of expression, particularly freedom of political debate, together form the bedrock of any democratic system," the court's opinion states.
"The two rights are inter-related and operate to reinforce each other: for example, as the Court has observed in the past, freedom of expression is one of the `conditions' necessary to `ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature,' " the opinion continues. "For this reason, it is particularly important in the period preceding the election that opinions and information of all kinds are permitted to circulate freely."
The SPUC case clearly shows the ramifications of legislative attempts to "reform" campaign finance rules. Improperly drawn, they can unfairly restrict the free speech of citizens.
The 1983 Representation of the People Act passed by the British Parliament "intended to prevent wealthy backers from spending huge sums of money on promoting political candidates," Bowman explained.
However, abortion proponents have used the law
as a tool to try to keep pro-lifers from spreading information about the
positions of candidates on the life issues, according to Bowman. "Over
the years pro-abortionists have repeatedly tried to intimidate SPUC, declaring
that to spend money on leaflets giving details of their voting intentions
or voting records was `breaking the law' and threatening to take action,"
she said.
Pro-abortionists asserted that SPUC's leaflets outlining the positions of all candidates were intended to directly support the election of the right to life candidate and oppose the election of the pro-abortion candidate, which would violate the funding restrictions of the law. However, Bowman insisted that the leaflets provided complete and accurate information about the candidates' positions, which voters could then use to cast an informed vote.
"In election after election, we have had candidates who quite deliberately will deceive electors, issuing statements on how they `feel' about abortion which very often is in direct contradiction to how they intend to vote or have voted," she said. "Our argument has always been that in reality voters are not interested in how candidates `feel,' they want to know how they will vote."
In 1993, Bowman, as executive director of SPUC, was charged with "corrupt electoral practice" for SPUC's distribution of 25,000 leaflets in the constituency of Halifax, West Yorkshire, during the April 1992 general election. (Each constituency sends one representative to Parliament.)
The leaflets specifically stated, "We are not telling you how to vote," and went on to merely describe the legislative records and public statements of the three candidates on abortion and fetal experimentation.
Charged with violating the 1983 law, Bowman went on trial in Southwark Crown Court. On September 28, 1993, the judge directed the jury to acquit Bowman because the charges were filed more than one year after the leaflets were distributed. However, Bowman and SPUC decided to bring the case to the Court of Human Rights.
SPUC's legal journey in the European courts began March 11, 1994, when it filed a complaint with the European Commission of Human Rights. On October 19, 1996, the commission referred the case to the court, finding virtually unanimously that the 1983 law violated Bowman's freedom of expression.
The Court of Human Rights held a hearing on the case on August 27, 1997. The British government argued first that Bowman was not a "victim" under the terms of the human rights convention because she was acquitted. Bowman's lawyers insisted that the very fact that she was charged with a crime and received publicity about the trial qualified her to seek to clear her name in the European court.
The court agreed, asserting that even though Bowman was acquitted this time, the fact that she was prosecuted once was "a strong indication to her that, unless she modified her behaviour during future elections, she would run the risk of being prosecuted again and possibly convicted and punished." Therefore, her case did qualify to be considered under the terms of the human rights convention, the court held.
The British government then contended that the restriction on money spent just before an election did not prevent Bowman from using other ways to publicize her views, such as starting her own newspaper, standing for election herself, or writing letters to newspapers. Bowman's lawyers countered that the government's suggestions to how individual citizens could make their voices heard did not make sense, "since no limit was placed on the powers of the mass media to publish material in support of or opposition to candidates."
Again, the court sided with Bowman, writing that there was no way Bowman could ensure her views would be published in newspapers and that citizens should not be forced to run for office themselves merely to get their views heard.
The court ordered the British government to reimburse Bowman for the expenses she incurred to fight the charges in the British courts as well as in the European court.
According to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the British government, which will now need to amend the law to bring it into line with the ruling, must follow the court's decision.
A spokesman for the British government would only tell reporters that officials "will want to study the decision carefully."