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Strasbourg, Jul. 24 (DPnet).– Ben Bradshaw, Caroline Lucas, and Alyn Smith presented a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights against the United Kingdom for lack of proper response to alleged interference by Russia in the United Kingdom’s democratic processes, including the 2019 general election. 

The applicants complained that, despite the existence of credible allegations that Russia had sought to interfere in the UK’s democratic elections, through, for example, the dissemination of disinformation and the running of influence campaigns, the Government had failed to fulfil its duty (“positive obligation”) to investigate those allegations and had not put in place an effective legal and institutional framework in order to protect against the risk of such interference.

However, the Court found that, while States should not remain passive when faced with evidence that their democratic processes were under threat, they must be given considerable latitude in their choice of how to counter such threats. In the Court’s view, while there were undoubtedly shortcomings in the UK’s initial response to the reports of Russian election interference, there had been two thorough and independent investigations, and the Government had since taken several legislative and operational measures to counter disinformation efforts and protect the democratic integrity of the UK. Any failings were therefore not sufficiently grave as to have impaired the very essence of the applicants’ right under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to benefit from elections held “under conditions which ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people.”

The applicants, Ben Bradshaw, Caroline Lucas, and Alyn Smith, are three British nationals who were born in 1960, 1960, and 1973, respectively, and live in London. They were elected as Members of Parliament in the general election held on 12 December 2019.

In February 2019, the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) published a report entitled “Disinformation and ‘fake news’” following its 18-month inquiry into disinformation and how individuals’ political choices might be affected and influenced by online information and interference by malign forces in political elections in the UK. A further report by the statutory Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) was sent to the Prime Minister in October 2019 and published in July 2020.

The applicants believed that the DCMS and ISC reports, together with the public response by the Government to the ISC report, provided credible evidence of interference by Russia in the UK’s democratic processes, including the 2019 general election, but on 12 April 2021, the applicants’ application for permission to apply for judicial review was refused.

The applicants lodged their claim with the European Court of Human Rights on 22 March 2022.

The Court declared the application admissible.

Although the Court did not underestimate the threat posed by the spreading of disinformation and the running of “influence campaigns”, it acknowledged that it would be difficult to assess accurately the impact that they might have on individual voters and, by extension, on the outcome of a given election. While this fact alone should not prevent States from taking measures to defend democratic values, there appeared to be no clear consensus as to what specific actions they needed to take to protect their democratic processes against such risks. 

In fact, the only area where there appeared to be a clear consensus was in the conclusion that this was a complex global problem which could not be addressed without the co-operation of international partners and social media companies. The impact of disinformation and influence campaigns depended on a variety of social, economic, cultural, technological, and political dynamics that did not lend themselves to simplistic solutions. Furthermore, there was a very fine line between addressing the dangers of disinformation and outright censorship.