European Court ruling could allow prisoners to vote
Prisoners could be given the right to vote—six years after the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that a blanket ban was unlawful.
The Cabinet Office revealed this week that the government may act to implement the ruling, Hirst v UK (No. 2) (App no 74025/01), which was made in a case brought by former prisoner John Hirst.
In June, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe urged the UK to act on the issue. The Committee is due to meet again at the end of November.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The government has been actively considering this issue over the summer.
“This work is continuing. There are a number of court cases underway on the issue that the government wants to take into account as part of our ongoing consideration.”
Simon Creighton, partner at Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, who specialises in prison law, says: “The government has been absolutely disgraceful on this because the European ruling said that the UK was required to put in place a policy on this, not that all prisoners be enfranchised, so sitting on this for five years is just mind boggling in its negligence.
“What the UK was required to do was put forward a rational basis for the loss of the right to vote, for example, that those serving more than ten years in prison should lose the right to vote because the seriousness of their offending has an impact on their citizenship, or that those convicted of election fraud should lose the right to vote.
“Personally, I believe there is no convincing argument for the deprivation of the right to vote. It can encourage prisoners to have a stake in society.”
Juliet Lyons, director of Prison Reform Trust, says it was regrettable that the government had waited so long.
“The punishment is deprivation of liberty, and the emphasis should be on rehabilitation. Prison governors and chief inspectors of prisons have supported giving prisoners the vote because they see it as a way for them to exercise responsibility. Those on remand already vote, and a comparatively simple mechanism of postal voting could be used to introduce this for the rest.”
