ADI to appeal after Court refuses TV advert under Human Rights Act
Howard Lake | 4 December 2006 | News
Animal Defenders International (ADI) has today lost its court case against the ban on its TV and radio adverts. ADI claims that the ban on political advertising on television and radio imposed by the Communications Act 2003 is incompatible with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but the Divisional Court has refused its claim.
However, the Court has cleared the way for ADI to appeal directly to the House of Lords and leapfrog the Court of Appeal.
The case springs from a banned TV ad which was part of ADI’s “My Mate’s a Primate” campaign launched last summer by TV star and author Alexei Sayle to protect primates against their use by commercial interests for entertainment (circuses, films, TV programmes & advertising), the pet trade, in experiments and as bushmeat (wildlife food) and to conserve their habitat. The advert featured a child actress playing the role of a performing chimpanzee.
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Tim Phillips, Campaigns Director of ADI, who was at court said: “There is a considerable inequity here, with Government and big businesses able to use the broadcast media and their critics like ourselves excluded. This is particularly the case on controversial issues, which are currently legal such as animal experimentation or the use of animals in traveling circuses.
“It is currently legal to use performing chimpanzees and monkeys to advertise anything from soft drinks to credit cards on television. Yet when we produce an advert questioning this and asking people to consider the suffering of these animals, and how they are trained and treated it is banned out of hand”.
Tamsin Allen of Bindman and Partners, ADI’s lawyers added: “The practical effect of the decision to uphold the current ban on political advertising is to allow commercial organisations freedom to advertise in ways and in media which are not available to NGO’s and campaign groups. In our view this ban is not consistent with the right to freedom of expression guaranteed under the Convention or with ./guidance from the European Court of Human Rights.”
Jan Creamer, chief executive of ADI, said: “We will be considering an appeal to the House of Lords for a declaration of incompatibility and beyond that, would need to take the UK to the European Court of Human Rights.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.