Bowman v United Kingdom

Bowman v United Kingdom
Court	European Court of Human Rights
Citation(s)	[1998] ECHR 4, (1998) 26 EHRR 1
Keywords
Democracy, money

Bowman v United Kingdom [1998] ECHR 4 is a UK constitutional law case, concerning the legitimate limits on campaign finance spending. A majority of the court held that countries joined to the European Convention on Human Rights may be required to permit minimal levels of campaign spending. The minority held that the United Kingdom's near total ban on election-related spending should be regarded as compatible with ECHR article 10.

The principle in Bowman stands in contrast to the unlimited spending at elections that the US Supreme Court opened up by Buckley v Valeo, where a majority struck down parts of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, and the licence of corporations to donate money as a protected right of "free speech" in Citizens United v FEC, with or without authorisation by their stakeholders.

Phyllis Bowman, an anti-abortion campaigner, distributed 25,000 leaflets in Halifax before the 1992 general election on the positions of three candidates on abortion. She was prosecuted under the Representation of the People Act 1983 section 75 for the offence of spending more than £5 on publications aiming to promote a candidate six weeks before an election, without authorisation. She was acquitted because the summons was issued out of time. However, Bowman contended at the European Court of Human Rights that her prosecution was an unjustifiable interference with her freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights, article 10.

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