UK: Votes for "unlawfully disenfranchised" before general election?
01 November 2008
The government must give prisoners the right to vote or the next general election will be illegal under European law, ministers have been warned by parliament's influential Joint Committee on Human Rights. The committee's conclusion threatens a constitutional crisis for Labour, which has tried to bury the issue ever since the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2005 that inmates should have the vote. The committee, comprising six MPs and six peers, has written to the Ministry of Justice saying the government must urgently change the law so that the majority of Britain's 84,000 prisoners are given the right before the country next goes to the polls.
A legislative solution can and should be introduced during the next parliamentary session, it states:
If the government fails to meet this timetable, there is a significant risk that the next general election will take place in a way that fails to comply with the convention and at least part of the prison population will be unlawfully disenfranchised.
The government originally said it would consider the issue of prisoners' voting rights in a two-stage consultation that was supposed to have been completed in January 2008. Ministers said a new law would follow after May 2008. But a joint committee member attacked the Justice Ministry for dithering on the issue:
The government cannot pick and choose which human rights treaty obligations it fulfils for party political reasons or just because it feels an issue is not populist enough.
said Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP and went on to say:
Gordon Brown is going soft on human rights. There is every chance that this country may be in breach of international law if the government doesn't have the courage to act before the next general election.
The Prison Reform Trust, which campaigns on behalf of prisoners, has written to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, asking why the government was delaying the legislation. “This mean-minded, foot-dragging approach... calls into question the government's commitment to social inclusion, citizenship and human rights,” said Juliet Lyon, the trust's director.
The Observer, 9.11.08, Prison Reform Trust