# ADI to appeal after Court refuses TV advert under Human Rights Act

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/12/04/adi-appeal-after-court-refuses-tv-advert-under-human-rights-act/
- Published: 2006-12-04T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

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.

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.

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“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.”

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