ABSTRACT
The applicant, Mrs Phyllis Bowman, was the executive director of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC), an organisation opposed to abortion and human embryo experimentation. Before the parliamentary elections in April 1992, she arranged to have about one and a half million of the Society’s leaflets distributed in constituencies throughout the United Kingdom. She was charged with an offence under sub-sections 75(1) and (5) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 which prohibited expenditure of more than GBP 5,000 by an unauthorised person during the period before an election on conveying information to electors with a view to promoting or procuring the election of a candidate. At her trial on 27 September 1993, the judge directed her acquittal because the summons charging her with the offence had not been issued within one year of the alleged prohibited expenditure in accordance with time limits in the Act. The proceedings were reported in the press. She complained that the prosecution violated her right to freedom of expression. Comm found by majority (28-1) V 10.
