Readers will know of John Hirst, who runs the
Jailhouselawyer blog. Over the last few years he has been campaigning for prisoners to get voting rights in general elections, something I am very much against. He had also taken the issue to the European Courts. Some time ago a judgement was issued which appeared to force the UK government into granting voting rights to prisoners.
The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers met earlier this week to consider Hirst v UK(No2) and the UK government's failure to respond to the Court's judgment.
The CoM considered that the UK has failed to provide an effective remedy by a national authority as required under Article 13 of the Convention. Because Article 13 was not incorporated into the Human Rights Act 1998, it follows, according to Hirst, that the HRA is not compatible with the Convention.
The CoM observed that only 4 respondents agreed with the government's position in the first consultation exercise to limit the franchise on the basis of sentence length and seriousness of crime, whereas 47% of respondents favoured full enfranchisement (which the government did not support or offer as an option).
Given this, the CoM sought an explanation as to why the government then decided to conduct a second consultation which sought to limit the franchise to those serving 4 years or under. The government response is a non-response. This is it...
Hirst (No.2) v. United Kingdom (application no. 74025/01)
Information submitted by the United Kingdom Government
The Government remains committed to taking appropriate steps to implement the judgment in Hirst (No.2) v. United Kingdom. We have now carried out a second, more detailed public consultation that takes account of the findings of the first stage consultation on how voting rights might be granted to serving prisoners, and the extent to which those rights might be limited in accordance with the judgment. The second consultation ran from 8 April - 29 September 2009. The consultation document proposed four options for enfranchisement based primarily on sentence length, invited views on those options, and also sought information from respondents on some of the practical issues raised by implementation. Over 100 responses have been received from individuals and organisations with an interest in the issue of prisoner voting rights. We now need to undertake detailed analysis of those responses, and to reach a view on the Government’s approach to implementing the judgment. The Government will keep the Committee of Ministers informed as it progresses this work.
October 2009
The CoM stated that the government was simply repeating what its position was prior to and throughout the Court proceedings in this case. And agreed with the stated JCHR that any further delay may result in the next election taking place in a way that fails to comply with the Convention (the election must be held in June 2010 at the latest).
"All the submissions, save for the government's, highlight the fact that the United Kingdom has not yet taken any concrete steps to implement this judgment and stress the concern of imminent similar violations if legislation is not passed before the 2010 general election".
One can understand why the government wishes to drag this out and delay making a decision. It is hardly going to be a votewinner, to introduce voting for prisoners, is it?
So, what now? The CoM will announce publicly, in 2 weeks, what is called an interim resolution which will force the UK government to announce the measures it will be taking - or else.
According to John Hirst, if the government fails to comply within the stated time limit, the CoM invokes the final resolution and the Court suspends or revokes the UK's EU membership. The authority to do so rests with the UK's duty to abide by both the Convention and Court's decisions. I'd love to hear a proper legal opinion on this.
But the real question remains. Does the government intend granting prisoners voting rights in advance of the next election, or not?
Footnote: Interestingly, Latvia which joined Hirst's application as an interested party announced that it is now giving all convicted prisoners the vote.