The regional arm of a fledgling political party campaigning for the decriminalisation of cannabis has been fined for breaches of electoral regulations.
CISTA – Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol – was fined £3250 by the Electoral Commission for failing to provide any financial returns.
The party ran four candidates in Northern Ireland in May’s general election.
According to the electoral watchdog, CISTA failed to submit quarterly donations and loans reports, before and after the election, along with campaign expenditure returns.
Bob Posner of the Electoral Commission said: "Political parties have a legal responsibility to submit their financial returns.
"Failure to do so on the scale demonstrated by this party has resulted in an unacceptable lack of transparency.”
Cista’s sister party in Britain was fined £3750 for similar breaches.
