Bradshaw & Ors v United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights has handed down an important judgment in Bradshaw & Ors v United Kingdom (Application no 1563/22). The application was brought by Ben Bradshaw MP, Caroline Lucas MP and Alyn Smith MP, who sought to argue that the UK had breached Article 3 of Protocol 1 to the ECHR (“A3P1”), which obliges states parties to hold free elections “under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature”, as a result of the Government’s alleged failure to take action to protect democratic elections from hostile foreign state interference and to investigate credible threats of such interference.

The Court’s judgment contains detailed consideration of the scope of A3P1 and the nature of the obligations to which it gives rise. The Court held that A3P1 was engaged by the Applicants’ complaints but that there was no violation in the circumstances of this case.

Ben Jaffey KC, Jason Pobjoy KC, Natasha Simonsen, Rayan Fakhoury and Tom Lowenthal appeared for the Applicants, instructed by Leigh Day.

Sir James Eadie KC appeared for the UK Government.

The judgment may be found here.