Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to hold an opinion and express it". Nonetheless, some 36 countries draw the line at the publication of the findings of political opinion polls during their elections and prohibit the media from carrying poll results during a period from a day to six weeks prior to their voting day. Greece is the latest. Some countries' politicians are so afraid of allowing their citizens to know the views of others that they have even in the past attempted to ban the taking of polls!

One attempt to draft such legislation in Ireland some years ago defined a poll as taking the views of more than 99 people. In a letter to the Irish Times, I pointed out that even Irish politicians surely must realize that if you took a poll of 99 people, and then another poll of 99 people, and another poll, and another... pretty soon you'd have enough interviews to add together to make up a respectable 'poll of polls'. The misguided Irish attempt was quietly withdrawn, but, alas, its proponent is now the Irish Commissioner in Brussels, where he can do even more damage.

Earlier this year, Hungary's politicians too thought they should have the freedom to lie to their citizens about their standing without fear of contradiction from legitimate measures of Hungarians' opinions as expressed through opinion polls. Their National Elections Committee accused Gallup Hungary of violating the country's electoral law by publishing the results of their findings on their website (www.gallup.hu) on 4 May, six days before their recent election and during their eight-day publication ban. I wrote to the Hungarian Ambassador in London on 14 May, as soon as I heard about it, to protest their violation of freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press. We offered to post polling results from any country that prohibits publication of poll results on our website in London, and called on polling organizations throughout the world to join us in this civil disobedience. I have not to date had the courtesy of a reply from HE Mr. Gabor Szentivanyi. On the other hand, I have been joined in this protest by the unanimous vote of the Council of the World Association of Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) and have received offers to join in this protest from Humphrey Taylor, President of the Harris Poll in the US, and from Rich Morfin, polling director of the Washington Post.

Our first experience of using the Internet to circumvent such bans occurred last year, when our friends at Environics fin Canada alerted us to the misguided attempt of the Canadian Parliament to ban publication of Canadian political opinion poll findings for a three-day period in advance of their Federal election day. We were pleased to post Environics' figures on our website during the 72-hour proscribed period in Canada, and that week had more hits than any other week in the life of our website other than the final week of the British General Election in April last year.

Canada rejoices in having a written constitution and a rule of law, and at the end of May the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the law banning the publication of opinion polls as being a virtual insult to Canadian citizens. The Court characterized the law as an excessive, vague and wrong-headed measure based on a "disturbing" assumption that citizens are naive receptacles who lack the faculties to sift through information and cast a responsible vote. "The doubtful benefits of the ban are outweighed by its deleterious effects. The impact on freedom of expression is profound," the Court said.

The law was challenged by Canada's two largest newspaper chains, Thomson Newspapers Co and Southam Inc. The Editor-in-Chief of Thomson's flagship paper, The Globe and Mail, described the Supreme Court's decision as "an enormous defeat of political arrogance and paternalism".

Among the staunch defences of free speech in the ruling, it was pointed out that "An opinion poll does not appear in a vacuum. Rather, it is published chronologically after a series of other polls which have been measuring public opinion throughout the election.... The more polls which appear during this period, the less likely that voters will base their decisions on [an] inaccurate poll."

I am grateful to Michael Adams, President of Environics, for alerting me to this problem in the first place, and Bob Richardson, Senior Vice-President of Angus Reid Group, for providing me access to the findings of the Court in the second. Well done Thomson and Southam newspaper groups!

Sincerely

Robert M. Worcester, Chairman of MORI