THE pastor at the Irish Faith Centre lost a High Court challenge yesterday to the banning of a radio advertisement for a video about the resurrection of Christ.
Mr Justice Geoghegan rejected a claim taken by Mr Roy Murphy following a decision of the Independent Radio and Television Commission in March 1995 refusing to permit him transmit a particular advertisement on 98FM.
The judge said the owners of 98FM had no objection to broad casting the advertisement if satisfied they were lawfully entitled to do so. But they had been informed by the IRTC that they were prohibited from doing so by virtue of Section 10 (3) of the Radio and Television Act, 1988.
It provides that "no advertisement shall be broadcast which is directed towards any religious or political end, or which has relation to an industrial dispute".
The advertisement said: "What think ye of Christ? Would you like Peter, boldly say he is the son of the living God? Have you ever exposed yourself to the historical facts about Christ? The Irish Faith Centre are presenting for Easter Week an hour long video by Dr Gene Scott PhD on the evidence for the resurrection - from Monday 10th to Saturday, 15th April every night at 8.30 and Easter Sunday at 11.30 a.m. and also live by satellite at 7.30 p.m."
Mr Murphy claimed the advertisement did not breach Section 10 (3); and that, if it did, the subsection was invalid having regard to the Constitution. The judge said he thought the advertisement did infringe the subsection but that the latter was not unconstitutional.
Counsel for Mr Murphy had suggested that the advertisement was in essence one for a showing of a video and a live communication by satellite and was not directly one for some religious belief or doctrine.
On any fair reading of the advertisement, Mr Justice Geoghegan said, he thought one would have to interpret it as being more than a mere notification of an event. The question therefore, of whether notification of a religious event necessarily infringed Section 10 (3), did not arise in the case and, that being so, he did not think it would be advisable or proper for him to make any decision on it.
The judge said what he was deciding was that this particular advertisement did infringe Section 10 (3) or at very least that the IRTC was entitled to take the view that it did.