G applied for a judicial review of the District Judge's decision to refuse to issue summonses for blasphemous libel against the producer of Jerry Springer: the opera and against the Director General of the BBC. In refusing the application, the Court set out the two elements of the offence of blasphemous libel, namely:
i. The need for contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous and/or ludicrous material relating to God, Christ, the Bible or the formularies of the Church of England; and
ii. The need for the publication to be such as tends to endanger society as a whole, by endangering the peace, depraving public morality, shaking the fabric of society or tending to cause civil strife.
The court observed obiter that a commission of the offence was unlikely to amount to a breach of a person's right to freedom of religion under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as a person's right to practise his religion was generally unaffected by insults to that religious belief. Further, the court observed that the offence was compatible with the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention as the basis for the offence was best found in the risk of disorder amongst, and damage to, the community generally. An appellate committee refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords in March 2008. [RA]
