Sunday Times columnist Jonathan Miller today appears at Guildford crown court in the latest round of his battle against the BBC licence fee, which he claims is in breach of his human rights.
Miller will face Ben Emerson QC, who has been hired by the corporation to prosecute him over his failure to pay the £116 licence fee.
He will argue that the fee is incompatible with article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which was incorporated into English law by the Human Rights Act, which entitles individuals to a private and family life.
"My theory is that the lawfulness of the licence fee has expired without anyone noticing," Miller wrote in today's Daily Telegraph.
He argued that this was partly because of the Human Rights Act, and partly because "the reason the BBC licence was ever legitimate in the first place has expired in the white heat of technology".
"I can choose from hundreds of channels, with more providers than ever. There is no possible justification for a constantly expanding BBC, paid for by a blanket impost on television sets and even broadband computers," Miller said.
"It is like being told to give more and more money to the Guardian to be allowed to read the Sun."
Giving evidence to the culture and media select committee yesterday, the BBC's board of governors said the current rate of TV licence evasion in the UK was 7.2%.
When the costs of evasion and collecting are combined, the BBC earns 12.7% less from licence fees than it would if 100% of television owners paid up.
The corporation aims to reduce this figure to 9% of the total by the end of its current charter period, the governors revealed.
Miller's case is one of at least four currently being fought against the licence fee.
Jean-Jacques Marmont, a 60-year-old man from Oxfordshire who was prosecuted for licence fee evasion in 1992, has launched proceedings against the BBC representing a group of licence-fee payers
In a separate case the so-called "Liverpool six" - five single parents and an asylum seeker - are claiming the licence fee is an unfair tax that targets poorer people.
Miller also threw down this challenge to the BBC chairman, Gavyn Davies: "I will buy a licence fee under the following conditions. You must stop prosecuting poor people. And you must open the BBC to a full and open debate in which the rest of the country can share in the discussion of your future."
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