A leading organisation of marketing research professionals has attacked as "undemocratic" the new legislation banning the conducting and publishing of opinion polls in the seven days before Irish elections.
Ms Gabrielle Koonin of Amsterdam-based Esomar, a representative association for marketing research companies, said the legislation contravened the European Convention on Human Rights.
"The legislation is in clear breach of Article 10 of the convention which guarantees the right to hold opinions and to receive and impart information without interference by public authority," she said.
The Irish legislation is the latest case of European governments passing laws intended to regulate the practice of election polls in the last 15 years, she said, a process she described as unjustifiable.
"It is hard to know if opinion polls have an effect on voter opinion. To know that you would have to know how to manipulate polls to get the desired result," she said. "If that were known it would be a very popular sport." The approach to opinion polls before elections varies widely in other EU countries. In Italy, the Paracondicio principle bans all political advertising 30 days before an election, and outlaws the conducting and publishing of opinion polls in the 15 days before polling day.
"We believe the Paracondicio legislation is undemocratic," said Ms Allesandra Ghisleri of HDC Datamedia Group, one of Italy's largest polling companies. "The legislation doesn't allow voters to learn about the programmes of the parties and the people involved in the election at the most crucial time," she said.
Germany, on the other hand, has no such regulations, relying to a large extent on a self-imposed ban by polling companies in the week before polling day.
The Emnid Institute in Bielefeld has been conducting opinion polls since 1945. "But we don't publish any opinion polls in the week before elections," said Ms Isolde Thiem, press officer. Emnid has a "gentlemen's agreement" with many other polling companies in Germany.
"It isn't that we think the polls will influence public opinion, we just want to protect ourselves from that accusation," said Mr Oliver Krieg, poll analyst at Emnid. "And in the hectic last week before an election when journalists and politicians all lose their heads, it's probably not a bad thing not to publish any more opinion polls," he adds.
Another company, the Election Research Group, is not part of the "gentleman's agreement" in Germany. The company supplies data to public television station ZDF for its respected "Politbarometer" opinion poll right up to the day before elections.
"There are groups that are affected by opinion polls, mostly floating and coalition-minded voters," said Mr Matthias Jung, an analyst at the company.
He said federal government would never dare to impose a ban on opinion polls in Germany.
"It would almost certainly be unconstitutional, because it would be a restriction on the freedom of information and expression."
The federal government in Berlin has no plans to introduce any law governing the publication of opinion polls, a spokesman said yesterday.
In France, it is illegal only to publish opinion polls, not to conduct them, in the seven days before polling. In recent years newspapers in Belgium have published results of opinion polls conducted in France in the run up to election day, which French newspapers are then legally able to reprint.
