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The highest German courts still cannot agree on the meaning and scope of human dignity as a restriction on freedom of expression. In a decision of 11 March 2003, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional CourtBVerfG) quashed a ruling made on 6 December 2001 by the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) in a dispute relating to competition law (see IRIS 2002-2: 14) and referred the case back to the BGH for a review. In the same case, on 12 December 2000 the BVerfG had overturned and referred back the BGH's first ruling of 6 July 1995 (see IRIS 2001-2: 13). The BGH had subsequently...

The Independent Television Commission has fined a "lifestyle channel", You TV, GBP 20,000 for broadcasting misleading advertisements and passing off what were, essentially, advertisements for produced programmes. This had resulted in breaches of the Commission's Programme Code and Code of Advertising Standards. You TV is a satellite channel, launched in June 2002, School of Law University of Bristol and sister channel to Shop America. It covers issues mainly concerning health, beauty and the mind and maintains that it is not a teleshopping channel but a programme service, and wishes to remain...

The Independent Television Commission has rejected an appeal against an earlier decision by its staff that European Commission funding for a programme on the Euro breached its Sponsorship Code (see IRIS 2000-10: 7). The programme was in CNBC's "Euro Change" series, which had been partially funded by the European Commission. According to the Independent Television Commission's staff, it was a current affairs programme, and under the Code of Programme Sponsorship current affairs programmes may not be sponsored. This prohibition is to ensure that news and current affairs programmes are both free from...

In a recently published ruling, the Oberverwaltungsgericht Berlin (Berlin Higher Administrative Court - OVG) gave its opinion on the question of which legal measures the Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg (Berlin-Brandenburg Media Authority - MABB) could use against a TV broadcaster that had shown what it considered to be an extended advertising programme. In the programme ars vivendi, a so-called "top gastronomic TV magazine programme", various restaurants and hotels in the Berlin and Brandenburg region have been featured in rapid succession since 1997; since the total length of the programme was...

The Bundesamt für Kommunikation (Federal Communications Office - BAKOM) has banned the SRG (Swiss public service broadcasting company) from broadcasting the TV commercial "Jetzt ein Stromausfall" ("And now a power cut") by the Forum Stromversorgung Schweiz (Swiss power supply forum). In the run-up to a referendum on two electricity-related petitions, the BAKOM ruled that the commercial constituted unlawful political advertising. The SRG was ordered to cease showing the commercial and to pay to the State the income it had received for broadcasting it. The commercial shows a man and a woman in a...