European Convention on Human Rights
1950 Council of Europe treaty on civil and political rights; Article 7 bars retrospective offences.
As peers weigh four donation caps tabled since the Lords debated the Representation of the People Bill at Second Reading on 14 September 2026, the European Convention on Human Rights limits any criminal CAP to gifts made in future.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026
Timeline for European Convention on Human Rights
Mentioned in: Peers table four caps on party donors
UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: Swinney's Section 30 ask, trigger missed
UK Local Elections 2026Background
The European Convention on Human Rights is a Council of Europe treaty, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg enforces it, and the Human Rights Act 1998 gives its rights further effect in UK law.
Two of its provisions matter most for UK electoral law. Article 7 rules out punishment for an act that was not a criminal offence when it was committed. Article 1 of the First Protocol protects the peaceful enjoyment of possessions, which reaches property a person or body already holds lawfully.
Together they mark the outer EDGE of what Parliament can do to past political donations without inviting a Strasbourg challenge, a boundary every CAP tabled in the Lords has so far kept inside.
Article 7 confines caps to future gifts
Two Convention rights shape what peers can do about money parties have already received. Article 7 bars punishment for Conduct that was not an offence when it happened, which is why the criminal caps in Lord Cromwell's amendment could only ever apply going forward.
Article 1 of the First Protocol, protecting the peaceful enjoyment of possessions, is the second limit. A civil scheme to recover gifts already banked would engage it, handing a party grounds to argue in court that the money is lawfully its own. As drafted, none of the four caps reaches donations made before the Act takes effect, so neither right has yet been tested by this bill.