Tag: Media Law
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Jacob Rowbottom: Digital Communications, Social Media and the Integrity of Elections
In the 2000s, I attended various seminars in which commentators complained that there had not yet been an ‘internet election’ in the UK. The complaint ran that election debates were still largely led by elites in the broadcast and print media, with citizens on the digital media playing a more limited role than hoped. Fast…
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Jeff King: Deference, Dialogue and Animal Defenders International
In Animal Defenders International, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the British ban on political advertising in the broadcast media (s.321 Communications Act 2003), consistently with the judgments of the UK House of Lords and High Court, but in an apparent departure from its previous caselaw in the VgT (Verein gegen Tierfabrik v. Switzerland,…
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Jacob Rowbottom: A surprise ruling? Strasbourg upholds the ban on paid political ads on TV and Radio
The European Court of Human Rights has given its decision in Animal Defenders International , holding that the ban on political advertising on the broadcast media does not violate Article 10. I had been convinced that the Strasbourg Court, following earlier decisions in Switzerland and Norway, would come to the opposite conclusion – but I…
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Jacob Rowbottom: Ministers, media and the decision to investigate
Last week, an editorial in the Guardian called for the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests to be scrapped. The paper argued that, as the Adviser is called into action so infrequently, his £20,000 salary is not a good use of resources. Since that article was published, Baroness Warsi has been referred to the Independent Adviser,…