PARLIAMENT Sale of electoral register - local authority refusing to remove voter's name from list sold for direct marketing purposes - breach of voter's convention rightsR (Robertson) v Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and another: QBD (Mr Justice Maurice Kay): 16 November 2001The claimant requested the local authority's electoral registration officer not to include his name and address on the electoral register.

The officer refused to accede to that request, pointing out that it was a criminal offence not to complete the application form.

The claimant sought judicial review, alleging breaches of his rights under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and article 3 of the first protocol thereto.Nicholas Blake QC and Jonathan Marks (instructed by Irwin Mitchell, Sheffield) for the claimant.

The local authority did not appear and was not represented.

Jonathan Crow and Rhodri Thompson (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the home secretary.Held, granting the application, that since no provision had been made in the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001/341) for registers to be edited pursuant to requests for exclusion, domestic law failed to comply with article 14 of Directive 95/46/EC (OJ 1995 L281/31) on data protection which required the provision of a right to object; that the sale of the register to commercial concerns without affording individual electors a right of objection was a disproportionate way in which to give effect to the legitimate objective of retaining a commercially available register and so violated article 8; that, to the extent that the regulations made the right to vote conditional upon acquiescence in that practice, with no individual right of objection, they operated in a manner which contravened article 3 of the first protocol; so that the refusal to allow the claimant to have his name removed from the electoral register before sale to a commercial concern for marketing purposes was a breach of his convention rights.