Mondo
UK: Prisoners win right to vote
British inmates are to have the right to vote following the lifting of a 140-year ban.
Newspapers across Britain and Europe have reported the coalition government’s decision to amend the law which forbids British inmates from voting in general elections.
According to the press, the decision was reached reluctantly and David Cameron is “exasperated and furious” at having to comply with a 2004 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling which states that the blanket ban for all inmates is discriminatory and breaches the European Convention on Human rights.
Civil society groups have instead welcomed the move. Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust called it a “historical decision” which marks the end of the archaic punishment of “civic death” whereby inmates loose all rights and responsibilities on entering prison. The ban dates back to the 1870 Forfeiture Act, which disqualified convicts from holding public office as well as their right to vote in elections. According to Lyon, “in a modern prison system you would expect prisoners to have rights and responsibilities and politicians to take an active interest in their constituency prisons”.
The legal tug-of-war between Britain and the ECHR has been going on since ex-inmate John Hirst claimed his human rights had been breached by being denied the vote while he was in prison and took his case to the European Court. Hirst, who served a 24 year sentence for murder, claimed that prisoners needed a legitimate channel to air their greivances: “When you’ve got a democracy people can put pressure and lobby in Parliament for changes in the law … but you can’t do that if you don’t have the vote”. Six years ago the ECHR ruled in his favour, but the former Labour government had procrastinated changing the law by issuing a series of consultations.
The Council of Europe’s warnings earlier this year that the UK’s failure to comply could spark compensation claims brought the issue on the agenda again. An unnamed senior government source was today quoted by the Guardian as saying: “This is the last thing we wanted to do but we have looked at this from all conceivable angles and … there is no way out and if we continued to delay then it could start costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions in litigation”.
Find out more: www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk
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