[1998]-q.b.-294

294 119981

[COURT OF APPEAL] A

R E G I N A v. RADIO AUTHORITY, Ex parte BULL AND ANOTHER

1996 Oct. 28, 29; Lord Woolf M.R., Aldous and Brooke L.JJ. Dec. 17

Broadcasting—Radio Authority—Control of advertisements—Advertising g by human rights organisation—Whether body whose objects mainly of "political nature"—Whether permission to advertise to be refused—Broadcasting Act 1990 (c. 42), s. 92(2)(a) (i)

In order to reach a wider audience A.I.B.S., a human rights organisation, wished to advertise on the radio to complement its newspaper campaign publicising violations of human rights. On 26 May 1994 it made a written submission to the Radio Q Authority, whose function was to regulate independent radio services, seeking clearance for an advertisement containing information about, in particular, the distress of victims of human rights violations in Rwanda and Burundi. The authority took the view that the objects of A.I.B.S. were "mainly of a political nature" within section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990,' which provided that a licensed independent radio service could not include advertisements inserted by or on behalf of a body D whose objects were wholly or mainly of a political nature, and rule 8(a) of the Radio Authority Advertising Code drawn up by the authority pursuant to section 93 of the Act of 1990. On 27 May 1994 the authority refused A.I.B.S. permission to advertise on the radio, and it confirmed that decision on 8 July and 7 October 1994. A.I.B.S., by two of its officers, sought judicial review of the authority's decisions. The Divisional Court p dismissed the application on the ground that the Act of 1990 gave a large measure of discretion to the authority and there was no evidence of irrationality in its decisions.

On the applicants' appeal:— Held, dismissing the appeal, that to promote the observance

of fundamental human rights by campaigning to change the laws or policies of governments was a political object within section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990; that the authority F had done all that it could to secure that the rules specified in section 92(2) were complied with and its decisions that the objects of A.I.B.S. were mainly political were not unreasonable; and that, accordingly, both on the merits and as a matter of discretion the court would not interfere with the authority's decisions (post, pp. 306F-307B, 308B-C, 309A-F, 312B-C, 313D-E, 314A-C, 315F-G, 322B).

McGovern v. Attorney-General [1982] Ch. 321 considered. u

Per Lord Woolf M.R. and Brooke L.J. The phrase "wholly or mainly" in section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990 is ambiguous and, therefore, since the provision constitutes a general restriction on freedom of communication it should be construed restrictively so as to apply only to bodies whose objects are substantially or primarily political (post, pp. 306B-C, 314F-G) .

Decision of the Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench \\ Division [1996] Q.B. 169; [1995] 3 W.L.R. 572; [1995] 4 All E.R. 481 affirmed.

' Broadcasting Act 1990, s. 92(2)(a)(i): see post, p. 298D-E.

295 Q.B. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.)

A The following cases are referred to in the judgments:

Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd. v. Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 K.B. 223; [1947] 2 All E.R. 680, C.A.

Attorney-General v. Guardian Newspapers Ltd. (No. 2) [1990] 1 A.C. 109; [1988] 3 W.L.R. 776; [1988] 3 All E.R. 545, H.L.(E.)

Australian Capital Television Pty. Ltd. v. The Commonwealth of Australia (1992) 177 C.L.R. 106

B Bowman v. Secular Society Ltd. [1917] A.C. 406, H.L.(E.) Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service [1985] A.C.

374; [1984] 3 W.L.R. 1174; [1985] I.C.R. 14; [1984] 3 All E.R. 935, H.L.(E.)

Cozens v. Brutus [1973] A.C. 854; [1972] 3 W.L.R. 521; [1972] 2 All E.R. 1297, H.L.(E.)

Derbyshire County Council v. Times Newspapers Ltd. [1993] A.C. 534; [1993] c 2 W.L.R. 449; [1993] 1 All E.R. 1011, H.L.(E.)

Edwards v. Bairstow [1956] A.C. 14; [1955] 3 W.L.R. 410; [1955] 3 All E.R. 48, H.L.(E.)

Garland v. British Rail Engineering Ltd. [1983] 2 A.C. 751; [1982] 2 W.L.R. 918; [1982] 2 All E.R. 402, E.C.J, and H.L.(E.)

Jackson v. Phillips (1867) 96 Mass. (14 Allen) 539 McGovern v. Attorney-General [1982] Ch. 321; [1982] 2 W.L.R. 222; [1981]

3 All E.R. 493 Ming Pao Newspapers Ltd. v. Attorney-General of Hong Kong [1996] A.C. 907;

[1996] 3 W.L.R. 272, P.C. National Ami- Vivisection Society v. Inland Revenue Commissioners [1948] A.C.

31; [1947] 2 All E.R. 217, H.L.(E.) Observer and The Guardian v. United Kingdom (1991) 14 E.H.R.R. 153 Reg. v. Monopolies and Mergers Commission, Ex parte South Yorkshire

Transport Ltd. [1993] 1 W.L.R. 23; [1993] 1 All E.R. 289, H.L.(E.) E

The following additional cases were cited in argument:

Casado Coca v. Spain (1994) 18 E.H.R.R. 1 Glasgow Corporation v. Johnstone [1965] A.C. 609; [1965] 2 W.L.R. 657; [1965]

1 All E.R. 730, H.L.(Sc.) Groppera Radio AG. v. Switzerland (1990) 12 E.H.R.R. 321 Rantzen v. Mirror Group Newspapers (1986) Ltd. [1994] Q.B. 670; [1993]

b 3 W.L.R. 953; [1993] 4 All E.R. 975, C.A. Reg. v. Broadcasting Complaints Commission, Ex parte Granada Television

Ltd., The Times, 16 December 1994; Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Transcript No. 1437 of 1994, C.A.

Reg. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex parte Brind [1991] 1 A.C. 696; [1991] 2 W.L.R. 588; [1991] 1 All E.R. 720, H.L.(E.)

^ The following additional cases, although not cited, were referred to in the skeleton arguments:

Reg. v. Governor of Pentonville Prison, Ex parte Cheng [1973] A.C. 931; [1973] 2 W.L.R. 746; [1973] 2 All E.R. 204, H.L.(E.)

T v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [1995] 1 W.L.R. 545; [1995] 2 All E.R. 1042, C.A.

X.S.A. v. The Netherlands (1994) 18 E.H.R.R. C D . 176 H

APPEAL from the Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division. By a notice of motion dated 8 December 1994 the applicants, David

Neill Bull and Nigel Wright, the director and chairman of Amnesty

296 Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) |1998|

International (British Section) ("A.I.B.S."), applied for judicial review by A way of (i) an order of certiorari to quash the decisions of the Radio Authority dated 27 May, 8 July and 7 October 1994 refusing to permit A.I.B.S. to place paid advertisements on commercial radio on the ground that A.I.B.S. was a body whose objects were mainly of a political nature and that consequently pursuant to section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990 it could not advertise on the radio, further and/or alternatively (ii) an order of mandamus to compel the authority to reconsider according " to law whether or not A.I.B.S. should be entitled to advertise on the radio, further and/or alternatively (iii) a declaration that the authority's decisions were ultra vires and/or void. On 4 July 1995 the Divisional Court (Kennedy L.J. and McCullough J.) dismissed the application.

By a notice of appeal dated 20 October 1995 and with leave of Stuart-Smith L.J. the applicants appealed against that decision on the grounds, Q inter alia, that the Divisional Court had erred in law and/or misdirected itself (1) as to the proper construction of section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990; (2) as to the application of article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1953) (Cmd. 8969) to the exercise of the Radio Authority's powers under section 92(2)(a)(i); and (3) in deciding that the Radio Authority's decisions were lawful. D

The facts are stated in the judgment of Lord Woolf M.R.

Nigel Pleming Q.C., Peter Duffy and Sean Wilken for the applicants. In deciding that A.I.B.S. could not advertise on the radio in the United Kingdom the Radio Authority misconstrued the provisions of section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990, in particular the words E "objects . . . mainly of a political nature . . . " Those words refer to objects which are principally of a political nature. Where not all of the objects are of a political nature, the authority must establish that a clear majority of the objects are political. [Reference was made to Glasgow Corporation v. Johnstone [1965] A.C. 609.]

The objects of an organisation are distinct from the activities „ undertaken to achieve those objects. Section 92(2)(a)(i) requires the authority to have regard only to the nature of the organisation's objects. Political campaigning in order to achieve a humanitarian object is not relevant for the purposes of section 92(2)(a)(i).

In order to accord with the common law or the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1953) (Cmd. 8969), section 92(2) should be construed restrictively: see Observer G and The Guardian v. United Kingdom (1991) 14 E.H.R.R. 153; Derbyshire County Council v. Times Newspapers Ltd. [1993] A.C. 534; Garland v. British Rail Engineeering Ltd. [1983] 2 A.C. 751, 771 and Groppera Radio A.G. v. Switzerland (1990) 12 E.H.R.R. 321. Any interference with freedom of speech imposed under the section must be the minimum necessary in a democratic society for the purpose of meeting a pressing social need: see Attorney-General v. Guardian Newspapers Ltd. (No. 2) [1990] 1 A.C. 109; " Reg. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex parte Brind [1991] 1 A.C. 696 and Ming Pao Newspapers Ltd. v. Attorney-General of Hong Kong [1996] A.C. 907. [Reference was also made to Rantzen v. Mirror

297 Q.B. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.)

A Group Newspapers (1986) Ltd. [1994] Q.B. 670 and Australian Capital Television Pty. Ltd. v. The Commonwealth of Australia (1992) 177 C.L.R. 106.]

The authority's construction of "political" in section 92(2)(a)(i) as precluding "issue campaigning" for the purpose of influencing legislation or executive action by local or national government was too wide. The fact that the subject matter of an advertisement may be one about which

° the government has or may have a policy does not render that subject matter wholly or mainly of a political nature. The promotion of the observance of human rights which is fundamental to international law and recognised by article 55 of the United Nations Charter cannot be a political object. Further, the authority erred in law in concluding that A.I.B.S.'s humanitarian objects and charitable activities could not

Q reasonably be separated from those objects which the authority considered to be political. Accordingly, the authority's decision in respect of the objects of A.I.B.S. was one which no reasonable body properly directing itself could have reached on the material before it: see Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd. v. Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 K.B. 223 and Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service [1985] A.C. 374,410-411.

D David Pannick Q. C. and Dinah Rose for the Radio Authority. Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is irrelevant to the construction of section 92 of the Act of 1990 since the section is not ambiguous: see Reg. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex parte Brind [1991] 1 A.C. 696, 747G-748A, 760G. In any event, the decision of the authority did not

E constitute a breach of article 10, which permits legal restrictions on freedom of expression which are necessary for the protection of other human rights: see Casado Coca v. Spain (1994) 18 E.H.R.R. 1, 24-25, paras. 51-56.

The authority applied the correct test in interpreting the terms "political" and "mainly of a political nature," by asking whether each of the objects of A.I.B.S. was principally aimed at securing a change in the

** law of the United Kingdom or of any foreign nation, or a reversal of government policy or administrative decision in the United Kingdom or abroad, or persuading the United Kingdom or any foreign government to alter its policies or adopt particular policies: see McGovern v. Attorney-General [1982] Ch. 321. There is no duty on the authority to interpret section 92(2)(a)(i) restrictively. The duty of the authority is to interpret the

G section in accordance with the intention of Parliament. By sections 92 and 93 of the Act of 1990, Parliament has entrusted to

the authority the determination of the factual question whether a body's objects are wholly or mainly political: see Cozens v. Brutus [1973] A.C. 854, 861. The court should therefore be slow to interfere with the authority's interpretation of the facts: see Reg. v. Broadcasting Complaints Commission, Ex parte Granada Television Ltd., The Times, 16 December

H 1994; Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Transcript No. 1437 of 1994. [Reference was also made to Reg. v. Monopolies and Mergers Commission, Ex parte South Yorkshire Transport Ltd. [1993] 1 W.L.R. 23, 29 and Edwards v. Bairstow [1956] A.C. 14.]

298 Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) |1998|

The fact that some of the objects of A.I.B.S. are humanitarian and A that A.I.B.S. is not "party political" does not prevent its objects from being mainly political for the purposes of section 92: see Bowman v. Secular Society Ltd. [1917] A.C. 406; McGovem v. Attorney-General [1982] Ch. 321 and National Anti-Vivisection Society v. Inland Revenue Commissioners [1948] A.C. 31.

Pleming Q.C. replied.

Cur. adv. vult.

17 December. The following judgments were handed down.

LORD WOOLF M.R. Under the Broadcasting Act 1990 the Radio Authority is charged with regulating independent radio services. On C 7 October 1994 the authority came to a decision the effect of which was to ban further advertising by Amnesty International (British Section) ("A.I.B.S."). The ban was imposed because the authority decided that A.I.B.S. was a body to which section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990 applied.

Section 92 contains a number of rules. Section 92(1) provides that: rj "The authority shall do all that they can to secure that the rules specified in subsection (2) are complied with in relation to licensed services." Section 92(2)(a) comprises one of the rules. This rule prohibits the inclusion in a licensed service of:

"(i) any advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of any body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature, (ii) any advertisement which is directed towards any political end. . ."

The authority's decision only applies to advertising on independent radio. The authority has no responsibility for advertising on television. Under the Act the Independent Television Commission is responsible for television. However, the relevant statutory provisions dealing with television are in similar terms (section 8(2)) and Mr. Baldwin, the chief executive of the authority, stated in his evidence that he understands the commission applies the Act to A.I.B.S. in the same way as the authority.

To be deprived of the ability to advertise is a substantial handicap to A.I.B.S. and A.I.B.S. having failed to persuade the authority not to ban its adverts, David Neill Bull the director of A.I.B.S. and Nigel Wright the chairman of the Council of A.I.B.S. made an application for judicial review. G

The application contains detailed grounds. These grounds make it clear that the issues on this appeal can be conveniently considered under two heads. The first is whether the authority correctly interpreted the provisions of section 92 which I have already cited. The second is whether the authority properly applied section 92 to A.I.B.S. in reaching its decision.

The application for judicial review was heard by a Divisional Court consisting of Kennedy L.J. and McCullough J. [1996] Q.B. 169. They H

dismissed the application on 4 July 1995. Mr. Bull and Mr. Wright now appeal to this court. In their notice of appeal, the applicants make numerous criticisms of each of the two judgments of the Divisional Court.

299 Q.B. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) Lord Woolf M.R.

A However, in order to determine this appeal, I do not regard it as necessary to examine those criticisms in detail. I do not intend any discourtesy in not doing so. My primary concern on an appeal of this sort is not with the accuracy of the reasoning of the judgments in the court below but with the correctness of the decision to which the Divisional Court came. However, I should make it clear at the outset that I do not suggest that all the criticisms made by Mr. Pleming on behalf of the applicants of

° the judgments in the court below are without foundation. However, after considerable deliberation I am satisfied that their decision is not one with which it would be right to interfere by granting relief by way of judicial review. I will set out my reasons for coming to this conclusion. Before I do this it is necessary to set out in more detail the background to the application and make reference to certain additional statutory

Q provisions.

The background

A.I.B.S. is an unincorporated association established as the United Kingdom part of Amnesty International. Amnesty International was founded in 1961 in order to contribute to and promote the awareness of human rights. Its contribution in this field was recognised in 1977 when it

^ was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and in 1978 when it received the United Nations Human Rights Prize. The constitution of A.I.B.S. provides that "the objects and methods of A.I.B.S. shall be those set out in the Amnesty International statute as altered from time to time. A.I.B.S. have power to do all such lawful things as may be thought to be incidental or conducive to its objects and methods." The statute of Amnesty

£ International sets out in clause 1 the object and mandate of that body. It does so in the following terms:

"The object of Amnesty International is to contribute to the observance throughout the world of human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In pursuance of this object, and recognising the obligation on each person to extend to others

p rights and freedoms equal to his or her own, Amnesty International adopts as its mandate: to promote awareness of and adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other internationally recognised human rights instruments, the values enshrined in them, and the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights and freedoms; to oppose grave violations of the rights of every person freely to hold and to express his or her convictions and to be free

G from discrimination by reason of ethnic origin, sex, colour or language, and of the right of every person to physical and mental integrity, and, in particular, to oppose by all appropriate means irrespective of political considerations: (a) the imprisonment, detention or other physical restrictions imposed on any person by reason of his or her political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs or by reason of his or her ethnic origin, sex, colour or language, provided that he or she has not used or advocated violence (hereinafter referred to as 'prisoners of conscience;' Amnesty International shall work towards the release of and shall provide assistance to prisoners of conscience); (b) the detention of any political prisoner without fair

300 Lord Woolf MR. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) 119981

trial within a reasonable time or any trial procedures relating to such \ prisoners that do not conform to internationally recognised norms; (c) the death penalty, and the torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners or other detained or restricted persons, whether or not the persons affected have used or advocated violence; (d) the extrajudicial execution of persons whether or not imprisoned, detained or restricted, and 'disappearances,' whether or not the persons affected have used or advocated violence." °

The mandate was subsequently extended so that it included "opposing abuses by opposition groups, hostage taking, torturing and killing of prisoners and other deliberate and arbitrary killing." Clause 2 of the statute sets out the methods by which Amnesty International was to achieve its object and mandate. In order to ensure impartiality, the .-, sections of Amnesty International operate in countries outside that in which the section is established.

A.I.B.S. works closely with two other bodies, Amnesty International British Section Charitable Trust ("A.I.B.S.C.T.") and Amnesty International British Section Ltd. A.I.B.S.'s 63 members of staff carry out work ori behalf of both of these bodies. A.I.B.S.C.T. is a charitable trust whose functions and work have been approved by the Charity D Commissioners. It was set up when difficulty was experienced in A.I.B.S. having charitable status. In his evidence Mr. Bull states that much of A.I.B.S.'s work is directed to carrying out the functions of A.I.B.S.C.T. and that 72 per cent, of the budget of the three bodies to which I have referred is spent on carrying out the goals which A.I.B.S. and A.I.B.S.C.T. have in common.

The trust deed of A.I.B.S.C.T. sets out as its purposes:

"(A) The promotion of research into the maintenance and observance of human rights and of the results of such research. (B) The relief of distress for needy victims of breaches of human rights by medical financial or such other means as appear to be necessary. (C) The procurement of the abolition of torture, extrajudicial execution and disappearance." F

In 1994 A.I.B.S. decided to run a campaign to bring the plight of people in Rwanda and Burundi to the notice of people in the United Kingdom. To complement the publicity which would be given to the campaign in the media anyway, A.I.B.S. decided to advertise on the radio. A.I.B.S. were asked to submit the advertisement to the authority for p clearance and to facilitate this an initial presentation was made by A.I.B.S. on 26 May 1994.

The following day, by letter dated 27 May 1994 the authority replied giving its decision in the following terms:

"Section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990 and, subsequently, rule 8(a) of the Radio Authority Advertising Code prevents advertising 'by, or on behalf of, any body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature.' Advertisers which fall foul of this requirement include those which seek to influence public opinion on issues determined by a government or seek to promote a particular


A political philosophy in relation, for example, to the organisation of society. The plight of political prisoners must, to a considerable extent, involve campaigning in order to influence the policies of governments around the world. After having carefully considered the points made in the submission, we are unable to satisfy ourselves that the objects of Amnesty International cannot be said to be 'mainly of a political nature.' We conclude, therefore, that advertising by the organisation may not be accepted."

It is to be observed that in that letter the authority indicated that "we are unable to satisfy ourselves that the objects of Amnesty International cannot be said to be mainly of a political nature." (My emphasis.) These words indicate that at that time the authority was reversing the onus of

Q proof from what it should be. Mr. David Pannick on the behalf of the authority accepts that the letter does set out the burden of proof incorrectly but contends, in my view accurately, that as the decision was subsequently retaken, this error on the part of the authority would not matter unless the error also tainted the final decision which was not the case.

Having received this decision, Mr. Bull wrote at length on behalf of D A.I.B.S. on 28 June 1994. In that letter he argued that the authority had

erred in law and included among his argument in support of this his argument that:

"a body can only be described as political for the purposes of section 92 of the Act if it seeks to overthrow the United Kingdom government, persuade that government to change its policies or

k change that government."

This approach to the interpretation of section 92 which restricts that section to what occurs in the United Kingdom is no longer relied upon by A.I.B.S.

By a letter of 8 July 1994 the authority gave its second decision. The p relevant paragraphs of that letter are in the following terms:

"The authority has decided not to change its view. Two points of explanation might be helpful. First, long standing legal advice has led the Radio Authority to interpret consistently the term 'political' more widely than 'party political' and to embrace legislative and executive action by foreign as well as U.K. governments; and to include, for

Q example, issue campaigning for the purposes of influencing government legislation or executive action. It appears, therefore, that your lawyers may have taken a different view from ours over the interpretation of the term 'political' in section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990. Second, the authority believes that the human rights issues which Amnesty International exists to promote cannot be reasonably separated from the policies of governments. To summarise, our

" current and consistent interpretation of the term 'political' when applying rule 8(a) of the authority's Advertising Code leads us to conclude that Amnesty International cannot avoid being defined as a body whose objects are 'mainly of a political nature.'"

302 Lord Woolf M.R. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) (19981

This was followed by a letter of 12 August 1994 from A.I.B.S.'s \ solicitors. In that letter the solicitors rely on the similarity between A.I.B.S.C.T.'s objects and those of A.I.B.S. The letter then goes on:

"The authority's earlier letter takes a very limited view of Amnesty's objects when it refers only to 'the plight of political prisoners' as being the organisation's main object. We hope that you can see from this letter that this is only one of several objects. In g your letter of 8 July, you regard Amnesty's objects as not being reasonably separable from 'the policies of governments.' In this you are in error. The issues which we have identified above are humanitarian and, in our view, non-political. Like many other such issues, certain aspects of them may be linked with government policy: for example, homelessness, poverty, famine, education. It is unduly restrictive to regard as political any object upon which government C policy impinges. Similarly, the fact that promotion of Amnesty's objects may 'involve campaigning in order to influence the policies of governments' does not make Amnesty into a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature. Once you accept, as we think you must, that the objects are not wholly or mainly of a political nature, this conclusion cannot be altered by the means which Amnesty p. adopts to achieve those objects. The authority is directed to pay regard only to the objects, and it is wrong to extend the prohibition beyond that consideration."

On 1 September 1994 there was a meeting of the members of the authority. On the following day the authority wrote to A.I.B.S. saying that the members had asked their officers to find out about the non- £ political activities of A.I.B.S. and further details of A.I.B.S.C.T.

Following this letter there was a meeting between A.I.B.S., its solicitor and two senior members of the authority. Minutes of that meeting are included in the evidence. A letter following up the meeting was written by Mr. Bull to the head of the authority on 19 September 1994 and that letter contained details of the breakdown in A.I.B.S.'s expenditure.

The final decision of the authority of 7 October 1994 contains the F following paragraphs:

"Following closer scrutiny of the objects of A.I.B.S., the authority maintains that it regards A.I.B.S.'s objects as being 'mainly of a political nature' and has concluded, therefore, that radio advertising by A.I.B.S. should remain unacceptable under rule 8(a) of the Radio Authority Advertising Code (and section 92(2)(a)(0 of the G Broadcasting Act 1990). The authority noted the humanitarian objects of A.I.B.S. and those activities which A.I.B.S. regards as charitable. However, the authority concluded that such objects and activities cannot be reasonably separated from those objects and activities of A.I.B.S. which the authority regards as 'political.' In the light of further clarification of A.I.B.S.C.T.'s objects, however, the authority decided that the trust's objects may be described as not being mainly political. Advertising by the trust of its charitable work in the field of human rights is therefore acceptable under the authority's Advertising Code. If you decide to pursue this option, your radio advertisement


A may, for example, inform listeners of human rights violations, highlight the charitable trust's. activities and appeal for donations while also clearly identifying the advertiser as 'the Amnesty International British Section Charitable Trust.' Following Radio Authority members' further and full consideration of the acceptability of radio advertising by A.I.B.S., I ask you to regard these decisions as final."

B In the first paragraph of the letter which I have cited, it will be

observed that the approach of the authority appears to be to look at the objects of A.I.B.S. as a whole.

In his affidavit Mr. Baldwin expands the reasoning of the authority. He points out A.I.B.S.'s objects were summarised in the submissions as follows: (i) to free all prisoners of conscience; (ii) to ensure firm and

C prompt trials for political prisoners; (iii) to abolish death penalty, torture and other cruel treatment of prisoners; (iv) to end extrajudicial executions and "disappearances." (This summary makes no reference to the addition to the mandate. I do not regard this as critical.) He then goes on to say:

"In order to determine whether the objects of A.I.B.S. are wholly or mainly political, the authority consider whether each of those

D objects is principally aimed at securing a change to United Kingdom law or the law of any foreign country, or a reversal of government policy or administrative decisions in the United Kingdom or abroad, or at persuading the United Kingdom government or any foreign government to alter its policies or to adopt particular policies. The authority considered the objects of A.I.B.S., as opposed to its methods, but was of the view that the two may not always be easily separated. Where objects could only be achieved by campaigning to change the policies of governments, the authority considered them to be political.

"The authority's decisions. The authority concluded, applying the above test, that some objects of A.I.B.S. were not political, in particular, the ending of extrajudicial executions and 'disappearances,'

F and the abolition of torture. The authority noted that the Charity Commissioners had accepted these objects as charitable, being non-political. However, the authority concluded that the remainder of the objects of A.I.B.S. (the freeing of all prisoners of conscience, ensuring a fair and prompt trial for all political prisoners, and the abolition of the death penalty) were political. The authority decided in the light of the above conclusions that the objects of A.I.B.S. were mainly political. Accordingly, advertisements inserted by it would be unacceptable under rule 8(a) of the Radio Authority Advertising Code, and section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Act of 1990. The authority was not persuaded that the question of whether the objects of A.I.B.S. were mainly political should depend on the allocation of its budget as between political and non-political activities. The authority was

H satisfied that the objects of A.I.B.S.C.T. were not mainly political..."

In reaching this decision the authority was performing its duty under section 92(1) of the Act. This section describes the duty of the authority as being to "do all that they can to secure that the rules specified in

304 Lord Woolf M.R. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) |1998|

subsection (2) are complied with in relation to licensed services." Rule 8 \ of the Code was drawn up in performance of the duty to draw up a code to which the authority is subject under section 93(1) of the Act. It is not necessary to become further involved with the Code since, so far as relevant, it only repeats the provisions of section 92(2) and no independent argument was based on the Code.

Section 83 gives the Secretary of State the power to appoint the chairman, deputy chairman and members of the authority. The authority ° is a lay body in the sense that its members are not required to have any professional qualifications. Schedule 8 contains additional provisions relating to the authority to which it is not necessary to refer.

Interpretation

Section 92(2)(«)(i), as we have already seen contains a restriction on c advertising by a "body" whose "objects" are "wholly or mainly" of a "political" nature. "Body" is defined by section 202 as "a body of persons whether incorporated or not, and includes a partnership." There is no statutory definition of "objects," "wholly or mainly" or "political." The proper meaning of each of these words is important in determining the outcome of this appeal.

Mr. Pannick submits that these are ordinary words of the English ^ language and their meaning is not a question of law. Their interpretation is a matter of fact to be ascertained by the authority as the fact finding body. For this purpose he prays in aid the well known passage of Lord Reid's speech in Cozens v. Brutus [1973] A.C. 854, 861. This passage, frequently the last resort of counsel appearing on behalf of respondents, has limitations. Words can take their meaning from their context and this g is true of the words under consideration. For example, to leave their interpretation exclusively to the fact finding tribunal theoretically could result in the authority and the television authority coming to quite different conclusions as to whether A.I.B.S. is a political body for the purposes of the section. The courts exercising their supervisory jurisdiction have the responsibility for providing guidance where it is practical to do so as to the interpretation of provisions of this sort which, if they will not F avoid this happening, will reduce the risk of it doing so. Here it is useful to refer to the speech of Lord Mustill in Reg. v. Monopolies and Mergers Commission, Ex parte South Yorkshire Transport Ltd. [1993] 1 W.L.R. 23. In that case the House of Lords were concerned with the interpretation of the words "substantial part" of the United Kingdom. Lord Mustill adopted Otton J.'s approach that "substantially" was a chameleon word Q which took its colour from its environment and added, at p. 29, that:

"no recourse need be made to dictionaries to establish that 'substantial' accommodates a wide range of meanings. At one extreme there is 'not trifling.' At the other, there is 'nearly complete,' as where someone says that he is in substantial agreement with what has just been said. In between, there exist many shades of meaning, drawing colour from their context. That the protean nature of the word has been reflected in the decided cases is, I believe, made quite clear by the judgment of Otton J., in which the authorities are so thoroughly discussed as to make it unnecessary to go through them again. It is


A sufficient to say that although I do not accept that 'substantial' can never mean 'more than de minimis,' or that in Falser v. Grinling; Property Holding Co. Ltd. v. Mischeff [1948] A.C. 291, 317 Viscount Simon was saying more than that in the particular statutory context it did not have this meaning, I am satisfied that in section 64(3) the word does indeed lie further up the spectrum than that. To say how far up is another matter. The courts have repeatedly warned against

" the dangers of taking an inherently imprecise word, and by redefining it thrusting on it a spurious degree of precision. I will try to avoid such an error. Nevertheless I am glad to adopt, as a means of giving a general indication of where the meaning of the word in section 64(3) lies within the range of possible meanings, the expression of Nourse L.J. [1992] 1 W.L.R. 291, 301G 'worthy of consideration for

C the purpose of the Act.'"

Later in his speech, at p. 32G, Lord Mustill recognised there still could be situations were the meaning of a word could be sufficiently imprecise to call for the exercise of judgment and then a court could only interfere with a particular decision on the grounds identified in Edwards v. Bairstow [1956] A.C. 14.

D The definition of "body" helps in reaching a conclusion as to what the section is referring to as being "objects." They are not necessarily the technical objects of an incorporated body. None the less where the body has formally set out its objects as has A.I.B.S., I would expect the authority to decide, at any rate in the first instance, whether the body's objects fall within the subsection by doing no more than examine the

g statement of its objects. Where however there is doubt as to whether the formal statement reflects the true position or it is not possible to determine the position by merely looking at the objects the authority is quite entitled to examine any other material which is available. If there are no formal objects then obviously it is necessary to look at what other material there is available in order to determine what its objects are. In doing so the authority has to decide the purpose for which the body exists, recognising

F that a body may exist for more than one purpose. Where there is more than one object and some are political and others

are not then it may be essential to go beyond the mere formal statement of the objects in order to decide whether the objects are mainly political. It needs to be remembered that if the body is not considered at least of a mainly political nature it is not subject to the prohibition.

Q "Wholly or mainly" is a phrase the meaning of which is not free from ambiguity. Clearly it requires a proportion which is more than half. But how much more? 51 per cent, or 99 per cent, and anything between are candidates. The same phrase appears elsewhere in the Act in a different

•context (see section 2 where it is not directly concerned with freedom of communication).

Here it has to be construed as a part of a provision which restricts the " ability of A.I.B.S. to promote itself on the media by advertising. This

constitutes a restriction on freedom of communication. Freedom of communication is protected alike at common law and by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental

Q.B. 1998—11


Freedoms (1953) (Cmd. 8969): Derbyshire County Council v. Times A Newspapers Ltd. [1993] A.C. 534. The restriction is a general one in the sense that it applies a blanket ban on any advertising by the body concerned, and applies no matter how desirable a particular advertisement which the body may wish to broadcast is. In this sense it is a restriction which is significantly more intrusive than that contained in the second rule contained in section 92(2) which requires a judgment to be reached as to whether a particular advert offends the rule. "

The issue is not whether the restriction contained in the first rule is justifiable but how the restriction should be construed having regard to its blanket or discriminative effect in relation to a political body. In view of this the ambiguous words "wholly or mainly" should be construed restrictively. By that 1 mean they should be construed in a way in which limits the application of the restriction to bodies whose objects are Q substantially or primarily political. This corresponds with the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary's meaning of "mainly" as being "for the most part, chiefly or principally." Certainly a body to fall within the provision must be at least midway between the two percentages I have identified, i.e. more than 75 per cent. This approach to the interpretation of a provision which impedes freedom of communication corresponds with the general approach of the courts of this country, the European Court of Humin D Rights and many Commonwealth courts in this area: see e.g. Ming Pao Newspapers Ltd. v. Attorney-General of Hong Kong [1996] A.C. 907, 917, Attorney-General v. Guardian Newspapers Ltd. (No. 2) [1990] 1 A.C. 109, 283-284, Observer and The Guardian v. United Kingdom (1991) 14 E.H.R.R. 153 and Australian Capital Television Ply. Ltd. v. The Commonwealth of Australia (1992) 177 C.L.R. 106. E

The attention of the Divisional Court does not seem to have been drawn to the need to adopt a restrictive construction of the words "wholly or mainly." Kennedy L.J. and McCullough J. did not directly address this point. They did however consider the meaning of "political" in some detail. I agree with them and Mr. Pannick that the judgment of Slade J. in McGovern v. Attorney-General [1982] Ch. 321 provides assistance. Slade J. was concerned with the question whether a trust of Amnesty International F was entitled to charitable status. He decided it was not because all the main objects of the trust were not charitable because they were in part political. Slade J. had to apply a stricter test than that which has to be applied here. He did however in summarising his conclusions as to what constitutes a trust for political purposes say, at p. 340:

"Trusts for political purposes . . . include . . . trusts of which a direct G and principal purpose is either (i) to further the interests of a particular political party; or (ii) to procure changes in the laws of this country; or (iii) to procure changes in the laws of a foreign country; or (iv) to procure a reversal of government policy or of particular decisions of governmental authorities in this country; or (v) to procure a reversal of government policy or of particular decisions of governmental authorities in a foreign country. This categorisation is not intended to be an exhaustive one, but I think it will suffice for the purposes of this judgment; I would further emphasise that it is directed to trusts of which the purposes are political. As will appear


A later, the mere fact that trustees may be at liberty to employ political means in furthering the non-political purposes of a trust does not necessarily render it non-charitable."

This is the approach which Mr. Pannick submits the authority had applied in determining the status of A.I.B.S. and he contends it is the correct approach. Section 92(3) contains a reference to party political and

B "political" in section 92(2)(a) is not used in this sense. No better guidance is available as to what is here meant by "political" and I would therefore accept Mr. Pannick's submission.

Mr. Pleming submitted there was an important qualification which had to be made to this approach. That is that an object will not be political if what is being promoted is the observance of human rights since these are regarded as being fundamental in international law and recognised by

C article 55 of the United Nations Charter. This is he submits, because to promote their observance, even though it involves having to change the law or change the policies of governments, is merely to promote the observance of the law. The problem with this submission is that it makes no allowance for the fact that regrettably the laws and policies of many countries do not match the standards set by the United Nations Charter.

Q To campaign to change those laws and policies so that they do comply with the Charter is political even though it is also commendable. It seems that a similar argument was probably advanced to Slade J. in McGovem v. Attorney-General since at the end of his judgment in relation to a different issue which he had had to consider he says, at p. 354:

"Indisputably, laws do exist both in this country and in many F foreign countries which many reasonable persons consider unjust. No

less indisputably, laws themselves will from time to time be administered by governmental authorities in a manner which many reasonable persons consider unjust, inhuman or degrading. Amnesty International, in striving to remedy what it considers to be such injustices, is performing a function which many will regard as being of great value to humanity. Fortunately, the laws of this country

F place very few restrictions on the rights of philanthropic organisations such as this, or of individuals, to strive for the remedy of what they regard as instances of injustice, whether occurring here or abroad. However . . . the elimination of injustice has not as such ever been held to be a trust purpose which qualifies for the privileges afforded to charities by English law. I cannot hold it to be a charitable purpose

„ now." G

Equally I find that I cannot hold that objects which have this purpose are not political for the purposes of the rule which the authority had to apply on the ground contended for by Mr. Pleming if they would otherwise be properly regarded as political.

Before leaving the judgment of Slade J. I would also draw attention to the fact that, at p. 341, he stated "trust purposes of an otherwise charitable nature do not lose it merely because the trustees, by way of furtherance of such purposes, have incidental powers to carry on activities which are not themselves charitable." This statement is of importance here since so long as activities are incidental to a main objective which is not political they


do not become political for the purposes of the section. Equally objectives A which are ancillary to a principal objective which is political are also political even though they would otherwise not be political. Thus to promote education on human rights, if it is an objective in itself it is a non-political objective. On the other hand if awareness of human rights in a particular country is promoted with the objective of bringing pressure to bear upon a government so that it will change its policy, the activity becomes political. It takes its nature from the principal objective. "

As is clear from the affidavit of Mr. Baldwin, the meaning which the authority gave to "political" is therefore acceptable. It also appears to have adopted a permissible approach in identifying the objects of A.I.B.S. What is not clear is what standard the authority was adopting when determining whether the objects of A.I.B.S. were wholly or mainly political. However the onus is on A.I.B.S. to establish that the authority Q has misinterpreted the statutory provision and this A.I.B.S. has failed to do. It cannot therefore be said that the authority has misapplied the law.

Has the authority properly applied the section?

Initially the authority did not consider it was necessary to distinguish between the objects of A.I.B.S. This was so even after the meeting between Q the officers of the authority on 9 September 1994 when the authority's officers were given a breakdown between the activities of A.I.B.S., A.I.B.S.C.T. and A.I.B.S. Ltd. The authority's letter of 7 October 1994 signed by the authority's chief executive, Mr. Baldwin, which says it contains the decisions which are to be regarded as final, as we have seen states that:

"The authority noted the humanitarian objects of A.I.B.S. and those objects which A.I.B.S. regards as charitable. However, the authority concluded that such objects and activities cannot be reasonably separated from those objects and activities of A.I.B.S. which the authority regards as 'political.'"

Mr. Baldwin, as we have also seen, in his affidavit clarifies the position p

and it appears that, contrary to what this letter states, the authority did distinguish between the objects which were accepted as charitable by the Charity Commissioners and those which were regarded as being political. This is the correct approach on the material placed before the authority by A.I.B.S.

The authority having accepted that A.I.B.S. was a body with dual objects, was then faced with the difficult task of having to weigh the G respective importance of the non-political and political objects. The authority according to Mr. Baldwin, "was not persuaded that the question of whether the objects of A.I.B.S. were mainly political should depend on the allocation of its budget as between political and political activities." If he meant by this that it should not wholly depend on the budget, this would be correct. But to ignore the respective expenditure would fail to take into account a relevant consideration. After all the director of Amnesty had attributed in excess of 70 per cent, of the budget for 1994 on charitable objects of which 30 per cent, was spent directly on behalf of the A.I.B.S.C.T. If the expenditure was not used as a guide on what basis


A did the authority come to its decision? We are not told and with or without this information it does appear that a very material proportion of the objects in fact being pursued by A.I.B.S. are non-political.

Because of the factors to which I have drawn attention I suspect that, notwithstanding Mr. Baldwin's affidavit, the authority did not go about reaching its decision in the way that it should. Despite this, as already indicated, with some hesitation I have come to the conclusion it would

" not be right to allow this appeal and quash the decision of the authority and require it to reconsider its decision. My reasons for coming to this conclusion are as follows.

(a) The authority is a regulatory body consisting of lay members which is intended to take a broad brush approach to its task. In the words of section 92(1) it was required to "do all that they can to secure that the

Q rules specified in subsection (2) are complied with. . ." This rather unusual statutory provision does not create an absolute obligation but instead places an obligation to do its best.

(b) The onus is on A.I.B.S. to show that the authority transgressed. If the authority did go wrong, which is not clear, it was not because of want of trying to reach the right result. By its officers it leant over backwards to give A.I.B.S. every opportunity to explain its case and some of the

D contentions put forward on A.I.B.S.'s behalf were misconceived. (c) From an examination of the different elements of section 92(2)(«)(i)

it is apparent that it is difficult to identify with precision the parameters of the paragraph. The language of the provision therefore allows the authority a reasonable degree of tolerance in its application.

(d) Because of its lay nature and the terms of section 92(1) the court g should be prepared in this situation to allow the authority a margin of

appreciation and only interfere with its decisions when there is a manifest breach of the principles applied on application for judicial review.

(e) A.I.B.S. is entitled to make a fresh application. The position is bound to be affected by the passage of time since the decision in October 1994 and it is preferable that the whole issue should be reconsidered in the light of our judgments on the up to date information as to A.I.B.S.'s

F objects. Therefore both on the merits and as a matter of discretion I would

dismiss the appeal.

ALDOUS L.J. I agree with Lord Woolf M.R. that this appeal should be dismissed. As he has set out the facts and submissions of the parties,

G I can give my reasons shortly. The applicants, A.I.B.S., applied by way of judicial review to quash

the decision of the Radio Authority made pursuant to its powers under the Broadcasting Act 1990 to refuse to allow them to advertise on commercial radio. That decision was taken by the authority because it concluded that the advertisement was to be inserted by a "body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature" and therefore was

H precluded by section 92(2)(o)(0 of the Act of 1990. The Divisional Court, Kennedy L.J. and McCullough J. [1996] Q.B.

169, in judgments given on 4 July 1995, dismissed that application. They held that the authority had not misunderstood or misapplied the words of

310 Aldous L.J. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) [19981

the statute and also that the decision arrived at was not Wednesbury A unreasonable: Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd. v. Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 K.B. 223. That was their task. As stated by Lord Diplock in Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service [1985] A.C. 374,410-411:

"one can conveniently classify under three heads the grounds upon which administrative action is subject to control by judicial review. g The first ground I would call 'illegality,' the second 'irrationality' and the third 'procedural impropriety.' That is not to say that further development on a case by case basis may not in course of time add further grounds. 1 have in mind particularly the possible adoption in the future of the principle of 'proportionality' which is recognised in the administrative law of several of our fellow members of the European Economic Community; but to dispose of the instant case C the three already well-established heads that I have mentioned will suffice. By 'illegality' as a ground for judicial review I mean that the decision-maker must understand correctly the law that regulates his decision-making power and must give effect to it. Whether he has or not is par excellence a justiciable question to be decided, in the event of dispute, by those persons, the judges, by whom the judicial power p of the state is exercisable. By 'irrationality' I mean what can by now be succinctly referred to as ' Wednesbury unreasonableness' (Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd. v. Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 K.B. 223). It applies to a decision which is so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it. Whether a decision falls within this category is a E question that judges by their training and experience should be well equipped to answer, or else there would be something badly wrong with our judicial system I have described the third head as 'procedural impropriety' rather than failure to observe basic rules of natural justice or failure to act with procedural fairness towards the person who will be affected by the decision. This is because p susceptibility to judicial review under this head covers also failure by an administrative tribunal to observe procedural rules that are expressly laid down in the legislative instrument by which its jurisdiction is conferred, even where such failure does not involve any denial of natural justice."

Procedural impropriety is not alleged. It follows that this appeal can G only succeed if A.I.B.S. establish either: (1) illegality—that the authority failed to understand correctly the law or failed to give effect to it; or (2) irrationality—the authority's decision was "Wednesbury unreasonable." I will deal with each of those matters.

(1) Did the authority fail to understand correctly the law or fail to give H effect to it?

Section 92(2)(«)(i) when read in the light of the rest of the Act requires the authority to exclude transmission of: "any advertisement which is

311 Q.B. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) Aldous L.J.

A inserted by or on behalf of any body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature."

For myself I do not believe that there is any ambiguity in the words of subsection 2(a)(i) of section 92. The word "body" is defined in section 202 as "a body of persons whether incorporated or not, and includes a partnership."

The word "objects," which applies to both individuals and companies, " must be given its normal meaning of "aims." What are the objects must

be deduced from all the circumstances, which may include the objects expressed in a constitution or other document.

The words "wholly or mainly" are words of degree. They are not coterminous in meaning. A person who is wholly to blame will bear a greater burden of fault than a person who is mainly to blame. They are,

Q however, ordinary English words and the question whether something is "wholly or mainly" is of its nature one which is a jury type question.

The word "political" is not qualified so as to limit it to party politics or to politics of any particular country. Thus objects of a political nature include those that seek to further the interests of a particular political party; or to procure changes in the law of this country or a foreign country; or to procure reversal of government policy or a particular

D decision of a government authority whether in this country or in a foreign country.

For myself I do not believe it right to seek to substitute definitions, not contained in the Act, for the words of section 92(2)(a)(i). I have in mind this well known passage in the speech of Lord Reid in Cozens v. Brutus [1973] A.C. 854, 861:

E "The meaning of an ordinary word of the English language is not a question of law. The proper construction of a statute is a question of law. If the context shows that a word is used in an unusual sense the court will determine in other words what that unusual sense is It is for the tribunal which decides the case to consider, not as law but as fact, whether in the whole circumstances the words of the statute do or do not as a matter of ordinary usage of the English language cover or apply to the facts which have been proved. If it is alleged that the tribunal has reached a wrong decision then there can be a question of law but only of a limited character. The question would normally be whether their decision was unreasonable in the sense that no tribunal acquainted with the ordinary use of language could reasonably reach that decision. Were it otherwise we should reach an

G impossible position. When considering the meaning of a word one often goes to a dictionary. There one finds other words set out. And if one wants to pursue the matter and find the meaning of those other words the dictionary will give the meaning of those other words in still further words which often include the word for whose meaning one is searching. No doubt the court could act as a dictionary. It could direct the tribunal to take some word or phrase other than the word in the statute and consider whether that word or phrase applied to or covered the facts proved. But we have been warned time and again not to substitute other words for the words of a statute. And there is very good reason for that. Few words have exact synonyms.

312 Aldous L.J. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) 11998]

The overtones are almost always different. Or the court could frame A a definition. But then again the tribunal would be left with words to consider. No doubt a statute may contain a definition—which incidentally often creates more problems than it solves—but the purpose of a definition is to limit or modify the ordinary meaning of a word and the court is not entitled to do that."

I have no doubt that the correct approach for the authority was to ask B itself this question: "Are the objects of A.I.B.S. wholly or mainly of a political nature?" To decide that question it had to take into account any fact which would throw light on what the objects of A.I.B.S. were.

I agree with Lord Woolf M.R. that it has not been established that the authority failed to understand the words of section 92(2)(a)(i). It correctly understood the meaning of the word "political" and appears to have asked ^ itself the question that I have posed. I therefore turn to consider whether the authority failed to give effect to the law.

On behalf of A.I.B.S. it was submitted that when seeking to give effect to the law, the authority failed to take into account A.I.B.S.'s objects which were not political, namely those that involved: (1) the promotion of research into the maintenance and observance of human rights and the results of such research; (2) the relief of distress for needy victims of D breaches of human rights by medical, financial or such other means as appear to be necessary; and (3) the procurement of the abolition of torture, extrajudicial execution and disappearances. That I cannot accept. In the written presentation, supplied by A.I.B.S. to the authority for the purpose of providing it with information to assist in coming to a decision as to whether the objects of A.I.B.S. were wholly or mainly of a political nature, it was stated:

" What does Amnesty International aim to achieve? Free all prisoners of conscience; people confined because of their beliefs or because of their ethnic origin, sex, colour or language, who have not used or called for violence. Ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners. Abolish the death penalty, torture and other cruel treatment of prisoners. End extrajudicial executions and 'disappearances.' . . . ^ opposing 'abuses by opposition groups, hostage-taking, torture and killings of prisoners and other deliberate and arbitrary killings.'"

In that document no mention was made of education, research or the relief of distress by medical, financial or other means. Those aims of A.I.B.S. were specifically raised on behalf of A.I.B.S. in the letter of ^ 12 August 1994 and at the meeting which followed. They were taken into account by the authority as was made clear in the letter of 7 October 1994 which stated:

"At their meeting on 6 October 1994, members of the Radio Authority reconsidered the acceptability of your proposed radio advertising. They took into account the points raised in your meeting on 9 September 1994 . . . and the subsequent exchange of correspondence which followed the meeting. Following closer scrutiny of the objects of A.I.B.S., the authority maintains that it regards A.I.B.S.'s objects as being 'mainly of a political nature' and has

313 Q.B. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) Aldous L.J.

A concluded, therefore, that radio advertising of A.I.B.S. should remain unacceptable under rule 8(a) of the Radio Authority Advertising Code (and section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1990). The authority noted the humanitarian objects of A.I.B.S. and those activities which A.I.B.S. regards as charitable. However, the authority concluded that such objects and activities cannot be reasonably separated from those objects and activities of A.I.B.S. which the

° authority regards as 'political.'"

The authority had in mind all the activities of A.I.B.S. that had been drawn to its attention, including those involving education, research and the relief of distress. It concluded that the various objects could not be separated. That was a decision which it was entitled to come to when giving effect to the section, and can only be challenged on judicial review

C if it was Wednesbury unreasonable: Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd. v. Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 K.B. 223. No doubt the authority, when taking into account acts to educate, to promote research into the maintenance and observance of human rights, and to relieve distress, concluded that the result of such acts could be or would be the seed corn of a political campaign. An object which, when considered separately will

Pj appear to be non-political, may have a political nature when looked at against a background of particular political activity.

The task of the authority was to decide whether the objects of A.I.B.S. were wholly or mainly of a political nature. It decided that that could not be answered by a mathematical approach using the amount spent on any particular topic nor by considering the time spent by employees on any particular activity. The authority had to take into account, and appears to

E have done so, aims and activities which were not on their face political, and then decide their weight when answering the jury type question. I believe that the authority did have in mind the stated non-political objects of A.I.B.S. There was no failure to give effect to the law in that respect.

It was also submitted that the authority failed to take account of the P expenditure by A.I.B.S. of money supplied by the Charitable Trust on

objects which were not on their face political. That I reject. The authority came to the conclusion that the amount of time and money spent on such activities was not a proper guide and in any case those activities could not be reasonably separated from the objects and activities of A.I.B.S. which the authority regarded as political. True, the authority was not persuaded that the answer to the question should depend on the allocation of the

G budget as between political activities and those that on their face were non-political; but it had in mind the amount spent and as stated in the letter of 7 October 1994 made it clear that the humanitarian objects of A.I.B.S. and those activities regarded as charitable could not be separated from the objects and activities which the authority regarded as political. As it had those matters in mind, it would be wrong to conclude that the

authority failed to give effect to the law in that respect. H

(2) Was the decision of the authority Wednesbury unreasonable? The standard to be applied, as explained by Lord Diplock in Council

of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service [1985] A.C. 374,

314 Aldous L.J. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) |1998|

was—is the decision so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted A moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it? Judicial review is not a forum for speculation or opinion as to whether the decision was right or wrong. To be quashed it has to be totally unreasonable; outrageous in its defiance of logic.

I have no doubt that the decision of the authority was not Wednesbury unreasonable. The view that the main aims of A.I.B.S. are political is ^ supported by the presentation made to the authority on 26 May. Once the authority had its attention drawn to the other activities of A.I.B.S., the authority concluded that the aims, which on their face appeared not to be political, could not in reality be separated from the political aims. Whether that is right or wrong is irrelevant. It was a view which was not totally unreasonable: it was not outrageous in its logic and therefore was not Q Wednesbury unreasonable.

I therefore would dismiss this appeal.

BROOKE L.J. I agree with the judgment of Lord Woolf M.R. and with the order he proposes.

The task of a supervisory court in a case of this kind is not to concern itself with the merits of the decision of the decision-making body, unless D that decision can be properly stigmatised as perverse or utterly irrational. If, as here, it is not suggested that the procedure has been unfair, the job of the court is simply to ensure that the law has been interpreted correctly, and that all material considerations have been taken into account. Like

. Lord Woolf M.R., I can find no fault in the Radio Authority's .. interpretation of the law. It is, however, unclear to me, as it is to him, £

whether they did properly take into account every material consideration when reaching their decision in this case. But since they are a lay body charged with a difficult task on whom Parliament has imposed the unusual obligation of having "to do all that they can to secure" the statutory objectives, I consider that it would be wrong for a court to interfere with the decision they made. Now that the law has been clarified, it will be open to A.I.B.S. to apply again, this time in a more straightforward way, F if it wishes to do so, and once a number of A.I.B.S.'s bad points have been cleared out of the way, it should be very much easier for the authority to determine a second application.

So far as the law is concerned, I agree with Lord Woolf M.R. that the word "mainly" should be given a restricted meaning: what is more, the authority should give the benefit of any doubt to an applicant, since they Q are concerned with implementing a statutory interference with freedom of speech. The Broadcasting Act 1990 was passed very soon after Lord Goff of Chieveley had said in Attorney-General v. Guardian Newspapers Ltd. (No. 2) [1990] 1 A.C. 109, 283:

" . . . I can see no inconsistency between English law on this subject and article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This is scarcely surprising, since we may pride ourselves on the fact that freedom of speech has existed in this country perhaps as long as, if not longer than, it has existed in any other country in the world. The only difference is that, whereas article 10 of the Convention, in

315 Q.B. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) Brooke L.J.

A accordance with its avowed purpose, proceeds to state a fundamental right and then to qualify it, we in this country (where everybody is free to do anything, subject only to the provisions of the law) proceed rather upon an assumption of freedom of speech, and turn to our law to discover the established exceptions to it. In any event I conceive it to be my duty, when I am free to do so, to interpret the law in accordance with the obligations of the Crown under this treaty."

Although he said this in a case concerned with the principles of the common law, there are two well known canons of statutory interpretation which make his words equally relevant when the courts are concerned with the interpretation of a statute in a field where this country has bound itself by international treaty obligations: " . . . Parliament does not intend to deprive the subject of his or her common-law rights except where this

C is made clear by express words or by necessary implication:" see de Smith, Woolf and Jowell, Judicial Review of Administrative Action, 5th ed. (1995), p. 326, para. 6-054; see also Bennion, Statutory Interpretation, 2nd ed. (1992), pp. 561-564:

"it is a principle of construction of United Kingdom statutes . . . that the words of a statute passed after the Treaty has been signed and

D dealing with the subject matter of the international obligation of the United Kingdom, are to be construed, if they are reasonably capable of bearing such a meaning, as intended to carry out the obligation, and not to be inconsistent with it:" Garland v. British Rail Engineering Ltd. [1983] 2 A.C. 751, 771, per Lord Diplock.

As to the word "political," this word is not defined in the Act of 1990, E and it is clear from Mr. Baldwin's affidavit that the authority has used the

charity law meaning of the word "political" in interpreting their approach to their duties. I say this because Mr. Baldwin mentions the last four of the five political purposes identified by Slade J. in McGovern v. Attorney-General [1982] Ch. 321 (ignoring the reference to a political party) as the criteria the authority themselves used in order to determine whether A.I.B.S.'s objects were "wholly or mainly political."

Mr. Pleming has argued that in adopting this approach the authority has erred in law, and that an activity should not be treated as political if it is targeted at persuading governments to comply with basic humanitarian values whose correctness it has recognised by acceding to international conventions or by being a member of an international organisation whose statement of aims reflect those values.

G For the reasons given by Lord Woolf M.R. I do not accept this submission. Campaigning against a government in order to persuade it to change its laws or its policies is unquestionably a political activity in the natural and ordinary meaning of the word "political" and I can see no evidence in the Broadcasting Act 1990 that Parliament intended to restrict the meaning of the word in the way Mr. Pleming suggests. The history of human rights litigation shows that there is plenty of scope for honest differences of opinion as to whether a government's policies do or do not infringe international human rights instruments, and an examination of the membership and the functions of the authority, as described in Part III of the Act, does not suggest that Parliament intended them to

316 Brooke L.J. Reg. v. Radio Authority, Ex p. Bull (C.A.) |1998|

become embroiled in sophisticated issues of this kind when determining A whether the objects of a would be advertiser are wholly or mainly of a political nature.

However, because of one aspect of A.I.B.S.'s activities, it is necessary to examine in a little more detail the reasons which impelled Slade J. in the McGovern case [1982] Ch. 321 to identify the different types of trusts for political purposes which could never be regarded as being for the public benefit in the context of charity law. These were trusts of which a " direct and principal purpose was either to further the interests of a particular political party; or to procure changes in the laws of this country or of a foreign country; or to procure a reversal of government policy or of particular decisions of governmental authorities in this country or of a foreign country.

Slade J. reached his conclusion through applying the rule that to Q achieve charitable status under English law a trust, however philanthropic, must, among other things, have purposes which are wholly and exclusively charitable: p. 331F-G. The reason why a trust for the attainment of political objects is always held to be invalid is not because such a trust is illegal, but because a court has no means of judging whether a proposed change in the law will or will not be for the public benefit. It is therefore unable to say that a gift intended for the purpose of securing such a ^ change is a charitable gift: p. 334C-D, citing Bowman v. Secular Society Ltd. [1917] A.C. 406, 442, per Lord Parker of Waddington. The court has to apply the principle that the law is right as it stands: [1982] Ch. 321, 335G, citing a passage in Tyssen on Charitable Bequests, 1st ed. (1888), p. 176 quoted by Lord Simonds in National Anti-Vivisection Society v. Inland Revenue Commissioners [1948] A.C. 31, 62, when deciding on the £ validity of such a gift. In McGovern's case [1982] Ch. 321, Slade J. held that the application of the same principle should prevent a court from holding that a trust whose direct and main object is to secure a change in the laws of a foreign country can ever be regarded as charitable under English law. This is because the court would have no adequate means of judging whether a proposed change in the law of a foreign country would or would not be for the public benefit: p. 338A-D. F

He added, however, that the mere fact that trustees may be at liberty to employ political means in furthering the non-political purposes of a trust does not necessarily render it non-charitable: p. 340B-E. Indeed, many charitable trusts today—national charities concerned with children, or the physically or mentally disabled, or with housing the homeless, for example—are prominent in their espousal of political means to attain their Q ends, and they are therefore perfectly free to advertise on radio provided that their advertisements do not infringe section 92(2)(a)(ii) of the Act.

This basic approach, which Slade J. then applied in turn to the different objects of Amnesty International, shows that for the purposes of charity law a particular meaning is applied to the word "political," and it is this meaning that the authority has itself adopted, as in my judgment it was quite entitled to do. It is noteworthy, however, that although campaigning against slavery in Massachusetts in the 1860s before slavery was prohibited in the United States would have been regarded by many as a political activity, a gift to a trust whose purposes were to "create a


A public sentiment that will put an end to negro slavery in this country" was held to be a gift for valid charitable purposes by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in Jackson v. Phillips (1867) 96 Mass. (14 Allen) 539, and Slade J. had no difficulty in reconciling this decision with the principles he had explained. This was because the trustees were to direct their pressure against individuals, rather than governments, with a view to obtaining the "voluntary manumission" of the slaves belonging to such individuals.

" I derive from this decision the principle that the Radio Authority's chosen meaning of the word "political" will not embrace any of A.I.B.S.'s educational or research activities unless they can properly be regarded as fuelling A.I.B.S.'s efforts to persuade governments to change their laws or their policies. And, as the authority themselves recognised, a number of A.I.B.S.'s campaigning activities cannot properly be described as "political"

C according to the meaning of the word they have adopted. I turn now to the facts as presented to the authority by A.I.B.S.

Amnesty International, like many humanitarian organisations, exists to combat man's inhumanity to man. As Lord Woolf M.R. has explained, it has only one object in its governing statute: "to contribute to the observance throughout the world of human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." In pursuance of this single

D object it has a two-pronged mandate. One part of this mandate is concerned with promoting awareness of and adherence to the Universal Declaration and to other similar international human rights instruments (which I will call the educational mandate). The other part is concerned with opposing grave violations of human rights (which I will call the campaigning mandate). It is hardly surprising that it is the four particular

E objectives of the campaigning mandate which achieve most prominence in Amnesty International's promotional literature: people are far more likely to pay for eye-catching campaigns than they are to pay for more mundane ways of promoting human rights objectives.

In order to achieve the object and the two-pronged mandate of Amnesty International, the statute goes on to specify 14 "methods," which range from providing financial and other relief to prisoners of conscience

*" and their dependants (article 2(f)) (an activity which is manifestly non-political) to making representations to international organisations and to governments whenever it appears that an individual is a prisoner of conscience or has otherwise been subject to disabilities in violation of internationally recognised human rights instruments: article 2(1).

Amnesty International is an organisation based on worldwide voluntary G membership. It consists of sections, affiliated groups and individual

members: article 3. A.I.B.S. is one of these sections, and by clause 2 of its constitution its object and methods are those set out in the Amnesty International statute as altered from time to time. One part of these objects is contributed to in this country by a charitable trust, whose purposes have been described by Lord Woolf M.R. It is clear from reading the Amnesty International statute, the A.I.B.S. constitution and the trust

H deed of A.I.B.S.C.T., that the trustees of that trust act as A.I.B.S.'s agents for carrying forward one part of its objects. There is also now in being a separate charitable company called Amnesty International Charity Ltd., which is the educational and research arm of the Amnesty International


secretariat (see A.I.B.S. Annual Report 1994, p. 16, which reports a grant A of £lm. by A.I.B.S.C.T. to Amnesty International Charity Ltd. in 1993 towards research and publication costs connected with nine reports into human rights abuses across the world).

Lord Woolf M.R. has set out in his judgment the history of the events that followed A.I.B.S.'s application to the authority on 26 May 1994. Part of the difficulty which confronted the authority in this case arose from the complicated way in which A.I.B.S. had structured its various activities. In ** addition to A.I.B.S. itself and A.I.B.S.C.T., there was also a third entity, A.I.B.S. Ltd., which owns the building in which A.I.B.S. is housed, and much of the office equipment A.I.B.S. uses: it also undertakes certain trading activities.

The A.I.B.S. Annual Report for 1994, which the staff of the Radio Authority were shown, makes it clear that the funds of A.I.B.S.C.T. and Q A.I.B.S. Ltd. are kept separate, as they would have to be if the company and the trust are to achieve the fiscal and other benefits for which they were created. The statements of income and expenditure of all three entities are, however, consolidated in the report to give those who are interested in the work of A.I.B.S. a full picture of how much income the section generates each year, and how the money is spent. The fact that one cannot realistically subdivide the different entities when one is ^ considering the object of the section is evidenced by the fact that until 1992 A.I.B.S. covenanted £jm. of the funds it held in its bank accounts across to A.I.B.S.C.T. Thereafter it has not made these cross-payments, but this does not mean to say that the objects of A.I.B.S. have altered in any way: it simply illustrates a change in the way it achieves its objects.

It appears to me, from considering the exchange of correspondence g and the minutes of a meeting between A.I.B.S. and the Radio Authority in September 1994, that it is possible that a meeting of minds was never completely achieved between them as to the nature of A.I.B.S.'s objects or, indeed, as to the very nature of the unincorporated organisation called A.I.B.S. The authority was willing to accept that the objects of A.I.B.S.C.T. were not mainly of a political nature. The evidence before them showed that the income generated to meet A.I.B.S.C.T.'s objects ^ represented £943,000 out of the total income of £5-5m. shown in the section's combined accounts for 1993: as I have already related, the trust transferred the slightly larger sum of £lm. to Amnesty International Charity Ltd. that year. This payment can perhaps be explained by the fact, which the authority was also told, that five-sevenths of the staff of Amnesty's International secretariat were engaged in research, or in Q providing administrative support to its research operation, and that the secretariat then passed back to the national sections the information which resulted from its research for their own use in informing the public and their membership and in working for the objects of Amnesty International.

A.I.B.S.'s contribution to this research effort in 1994 was to be about £l-6m. However, in the letter which Mr. Bull wrote to the authority's head of regulation in September 1994 expenditure from funds held by " A.I.B.S. and expenditure from funds held by the trust is all jumbled up. It is not at all clear from that letter how much of the total net budget of £l-6m. destined for the "international movement" (comprising the


A contribution to the research work, support to other national sections, support to a European community project, and relief funds) is to come from the trust's own funds and how much is to come from non-trust funds. I imagine that for the ordinary supporter of A.I.B.S. the distinction would be meaningless.

I have found it very difficult to determine whether the authority took into account matters which they ought not to have taken into account, or

° failed to take into account matters which they ought to have taken into account when they reached their decision adverse to A.I.B.S. It is clear that they took a lot of trouble over this application: when the matter first came formally before a full meeting of the authority on 1 September, their members instructed officers to find out more about the non-political activities of A.I.B.S. and to learn more details about the trust. The

Q authority's reasons for their eventual decision are set out in their letter dated 7 October 1994 and in Mr. Baldwin's affidavit: like Lord Woolf M.R., I attach no importance to the fact that quite early on a member of the authority's staff made a mistake over the location of the burden of proof.

The authority's approach was to examine A.I.B.S. and A.I.B.S.C.T. separately. They concluded that A.I.B.S.'s objects were mainly of a

*-* political nature whereas the trust's objects were not. They were therefore willing to allow the trust to place radio advertisements informing listeners of human rights violations and appealing for funds for its work, even though they were not willing to permit A.I.B.S. to carry out the same activity. This must mean that the authority must have been satisfied that the trust's information and research activities were not wholly or mainly

E concerned with fuelling A.I.B.S.Js efforts to persuade governments to change their laws or their policies.

So far as A.I.B.S. was concerned, the authority identified its objects not from its constitution (which they may not have been shown) but from one page of the submission it had received from A.I.B.S.'s media consultants which is headed "What does Amnesty International aim to achieve?" They then examined the first four of the objects set out on that

*" page (which are the four components of what I have described as the "campaigning mandate" as opposed to the "educational mandate"), and ignored the fifth, which relates to campaigning against abuses by opposition groups, and applied to each of these four objects four of Slade J.'s five tests for determining whether a trust is for political purposes [1982] Ch. 321: the first test, which related to party political purposes, it

G rightly treated as irrelevant. And they concluded, in effect, that two of A.I.B.S.'s objects were wholly political, one was wholly non-political, and the fourth was hybrid in nature.

On the political side of the line they placed the freeing of all prisoners of conscience, ensuring fair and prompt trials for political prisoners, and the abolition of the death penalty. On the non-political side of the line they placed the abolition of torture and the ending of extrajudicial

"• executions and "disappearances." Perhaps wisely they did not seek to categorise the abolition of "other cruel treatment of prisoners," because everything would depend on the nature of the treatment under challenge. No doubt they would also have categorised as non-political the opposing


of "abuses by opposition groups, hostage-taking, torture and killings of A prisoners and other deliberate and arbitrary killings" because these activities were not aimed at persuading governments to change their laws or their policies. They do not appear to have addressed A.I.B.S.'s educational mandate at all.

As I have already made clear, I consider that the authority was entitled, as a matter of law, to adopt the meaning of the word "political" g which was used by Slade J. in the McGovern case, and I am therefore unable to find anything wrong with any of their categorisations. However, I share the surprise expressed by Lord Woolf M.R. about the way in which the authority found themselves able to reach their final conclusion that A.I.B.S.'s objects were mainly political. If half of A.I.B.S.'s campaigning aims were non-political, and the educational and research Q objects of A.I.B.S.C.T. in the field of education and research were not mainly political, what was it that persuaded the authority to decide this case in the way they did?

I have a suspicion that the answer may be found in the rather confusing way in which A.I.B.S. put its case to the authority. At the final stage of its inquiry, when the authority asked their staff to find out more „ about A.I.B.S.'s non-political activities and further details of A.I.B.S.C.T., two of their officers had a meeting at A.I.B.S.'s offices with Mr. Bull and A.I.B.S.'s solicitor: an agreed minute of that meeting is before the court. During the course of the meeting Mr. Bull showed his visitors a copy of the 1994 Annual Report, which, as the minutes record, "clarified that A.I.B.S. comprised three separate legal entities, namely" A.I.B.S. itself, the company and the trust. This language is taken from p. 12 of the Annual Report itself, which starts with the words "The British section of Amnesty International comprises three separate legal entities."

This idea that the three entities are entirely separate is not completely diffused by the terms of Mr. Bull's subsequent letter (with its accompanying annexes) in which he tried to respond to the authority's request for an approximate breakdown of charitable and non-charitable expenditure of "A.I.B.S. as a whole." It is not at all easy to discern from that letter the true position, which is that A.I.B.S. is an unincorporated body made up of a very large number of individuals, groups and affiliated organisations which pursues, among other things, a set of non-political objects partly through the agency of the trust, partly through the agency of the company, and partly through some of the residual funds it holds which it does not G pass across to either of these two artificial legal constructs. These are constructs which, to the extent permitted to them by their trust deed or memorandum of association, share the same objects as A.I.B.S. Mr. Bull said that he found the exercise he tried to perform through that letter a difficult one: the message his letter conveys is certainly not at all clear.

In these circumstances I would not have found it surprising if members H of the authority had treated A.I.B.S., the company and the trust as indeed being quite separate entities without clearly appreciating that the company and the trust were simply two vehicles through which A.I.B.S. was


A carrying forward part of its own objects. Mr. Baldwin explains that the authority was not persuaded that the answer to the question whether the objects of A.I.B.S. were mainly political should depend on the way it allocated its budget as between political and non-political activities, and I can see nothing wrong with that approach. But it is not at all clear to me how, when they considered A.I.B.S.'s own objects, they were treating the activities of the trust (which had been accepted as wholly and

° exclusively non-political by the Charity Commissioners) in the field of education and research. As I have said, the trust paid £lm., more than its entire annual income, in 1993 to the charitable arm of the Amnesty International secretariat, which was itself also concerned with these activities, and an even bigger grant was budgeted for this purpose in 1994. All these activities were in addition to the other miscellaneous activities

C for non-political objects described in the annex to Mr. Bull's letter. If the authority did indeed understand the true position, their stance

would at least have been internally consistent if they had decided not to adopt the Charity Commissioners' view, and if they had considered that A.I.B.S.'s objects in the field of education and research (largely advanced through the trust) were so inextricably linked with its political campaigning aims that they could not properly be excluded from the ban imposed by

^ section 92(2)(a)(i): nobody would suggest, for example, that the research and educational activities conducted by a political party could properly be delinked from the objects of the party. But the authority does not appear to have taken that view, since they have permitted the trust to advertise.

From the very start the way A.I.B.S. presented its case to the authority cannot have been easy to follow. For instance, the clearest exposition of

E its case is to be found in its consultants' original presentation: the authority were much more powerfully influenced by the contents of that document than they were by the details of A.I.B.S.'s activities in the fields of education and research which they later received. The next document A.I.B.S. sent to the authority was a letter from Mr. Bull dated 28 June 1994 which contained a number of propositions of law which are in my judgment plainly wrong. The later exposition of the nature and extent of

*~ A.I.B.S.'s charitable and/or non-political activities was, as I have already said, confusing. And I can see no evidence that A.I.B.S. ever sent the authority a copy of its own constitution (as opposed to the Amnesty International statute).

Because of the confusing way in which A.I.B.S. presented its case, I am not persuaded that the authority, which is a lay body, failed in their

G statutory duty to "do all that they can to secure that the rules specified in [section 92(2) of the Act] are complied with." And in any event, even if I had thought that they could have done more in this regard, it does not appear to me that this is a case in which the court, in the exercise of its discretion, ought to intervene so as to require a redetermination of the original 1994 application. Things have moved on since 1994, and the law has now been clarified, and if A.I.B.S. still wish to pursue its desire to advertise on the radio, it would, in my judgment, be very much better if it were to submit a brand new application which the authority could then consider in the light of the guidance we have given to them in these judgments.


I realise that if the Radio Authority were to reach a different A conclusion when they consider a new application money may flow in to A.I.B.S. from a radio advertisement which does not fall foul of section 92(2)(a)(ii) of the Act which A.I.B.S. may use directly for a political campaigning end. But if this did happen, there would be nothing unusual about it. As I have already pointed out, many national charities campaign vigorously today to persuade the government to change the law but nobody would suggest that for this reason they fall within the prohibition ° set out in section 92(2)(a)(i) of the Act. Advertisements which are directed towards any political end are of course an entirely different matter.

Although my approach to this case, like that of Lord Woolf M.R., has been different from that adopted by the Divisional Court, I agree with him that this appeal should be dismissed.

C Appeal dismissed No order as to costs. Leave to appeal refused.

24 April 1997. The Appeal Committee of the House of Lords (Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Lloyd of Berwick and Lord Clyde) dismissed a petition by the applicants for leave to appeal. D

Solicitors: Bindman & Partners; Allen & Overy.

[Reported by JILL SUTHERLAND, Barrister]

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