Prisoner Votes etc

Witterings From Witney highlights this article from the Express claiming that the coalition is prepared to give prisoners the right to votes.

As I blogged here, here and here, this has been an issue that has been rumbling on for quite some time. I always thought the Tories would give in eventually (we don't really have a choice unless we are prepared to fall out with the Council of Europe - which won't happen) but now that they are in coalition with the Lib Dems, prisoner's votes are inevitable with added cream on top.

What the voters think as always is irrelevant.

Not Long Now...

...until prisoners will be granted the right to vote. As predicted here and here, the government was always likely to cave in rather quickly after the election, the question as ever is timing. My bet of it happening around the time of the emergency budget, which is on June 22nd, still looks good.

Completely unrelated, the nation will be distracted from the gloomy economic news certain to be in the budget, because England are playing Slovenia in the World Cup the day after, on the 23rd.

Shurley some coincidence. Jo Moore would be proud.

UK Warned Over Voting Rights

The 1078th Committee of Ministers meeting took place last week and one of the issues under consideration was the ongoing saga with voting rights for prisoners.

The Committee of Ministers released their decision yesterday strongly urging the UK to allow prisoners to vote at the general election.

The deputies

• reiterated their serious concern that a failure to implement the court's judgment before the general election and the increasing number of persons potentially affected by the restriction could result in similar violations affecting a significant category of persons, giving rise to a substantial risk of repetitive applications to the European Court; and
• strongly urged the authorities to rapidly adopt measures, of even an interim nature, to ensure the execution of the court's judgment before the forthcoming general election.

Ultimately, though, there is little more the Council of Europe can do, apart from kick us out which is very unlikely and as I suggested here the forthcoming election will not be invalid or illegal.

The Committee will reconvene in June:

6. decided to resume consideration of this item at their 1086th meeting (June 2010) (DH) in the light of further information to be provided by the authorities on general measures.

June would coincide nicely with the emergency budget that is likely to occur should the Tories win the election in May, the perfect day to give in when we're all pre-occupied by the mess the economy is in.

hattip: witterings from witney

The Prisoner Voting Rights Saga Rumbles On

The BBC reports that the Barred From Voting pressure group is panicking trying to put pressure on the government to lift the ban on prisoners' votes before the election.

The general election will break the law unless the ban on prisoners voting is lifted, a pressure group has warned.

Unlikely. The validity of 2007 Scottish Parliament election was never challenged despite this similar complaint which was upheld. Naturally John Hirst, he who took the UK to the ECHR over this issue, has picked this up (his emphasis):

The interim resolution is the penultimate stage for resolving the UK's problem. The next stage is that in March, my legal team will make submissions alleging systemic violation by the UK and seek that Hirst v UK(No2) is returned to the ECtHR for a ruling and invoke the final resolution. The Court then lays down in specific terms what the UK must do to comply with the judgment and within what time limit. A failure to comply will result in the UK being suspended from the Council of Europe. Although this is separate from the EU, because it is also a requirement that EU Member States abide by the Convention and ECtHR decisions, the UK will also be suspended or kicked out of the EU.

I think he's getting a little ahead of himself here. It's true that the Committee of Ministers could theoretically suspend the UK's membership and ask it to withdraw under Article 8 of the Statute of the Council of Europe, if it 'has seriously violated' human rights. But is denying convicted criminals the right to vote really a serious violation? Would other countries such as Russia who also don't have prisoner voting rights, vote to suspend the UK? I can think of far worse serious violations by countries who are members of the Council of Europe which has not resulted in their suspension. Italy has not been suspended for failing to implement the Lautsi v Italy judgment. Suspension of the UK from the Council of Europe is very very unlikely, more likely is that political pressure will be placed on the UK to embarrass them into action.

If by some miracle suspension should happen, Hirst then argues the UK will be kicked out of the EU (oh how I wish). No, it's never gonna happen. Ever. For a country the size and importance of the UK to leave would have enormous ramifications, for both us and the EU, and would shake the EU to its very foundations. Given that the Eurozone is currently on a plummet trajectory, the EU is absolutely desperate to try to keep their pet project above water; the last thing they will do is risk complete breakdown by kicking out one of the biggest net contributors, during an economic crisis. The UK being forced to exit is a complete non-starter.

Hirst continues:

I have gambled £20 with William Hill at 20/1 that all or the majority of prisoners will get the vote by the next general election.

I would've saved my money, it won't happen this side of the election for a number of reasons. Labour are, understandably, dragging their feet, they don't want the political implications of this just before an election. Any judgment will not be implemented in a hurry. Then there's the Brown factor. In order to give the likely incoming Tory administration the worst possible handover, Brown has been passing legislation that carefully places time bombs designed to go off at regular intervals throughout the next Parliament; the budget deficit bill, the equality bill, and possibly the AV referendum outcome. What could be better than a potential bust up with Europe, Brown will be desperate for this to blow up for the Tories after the election.

And most important of all it's a question of time. Leaving aside that there's a real possibility there could be an election in just under 7 weeks, a 6th May election requires dissolution on 12th April. The 1078th Committee of Ministers meeting which will consider Hirst's case runs from 2nd March to 4th March. This in effect leaves 5 weeks for the Committee to make a decision, return it to the ECHR, who then have to consider it, then pass judgment and then for Parliament to act on that judgment, all before dissolution. There simply isn't enough time, logistically, or legally for it to happen before the election.

A far better bet is that the Tories (if they win) will cave in to the Council of Europe within 50 days of the general election having taken place; the day after the Tories emergency budget when the headlines will be utterly dominated by the painful economic measures outlined- the perfect day to slip out some other unpopular news.

Is the Government stalling on Prisoner Voting Rights?

John Hirst, who was convicted of killing his landlady with an axe, has long campaigned for voting rights for prisoners, something which I fundamentally object to, and I would imagine so would a large proportion of the British public.

As part of his fight, Hirst took the the issue to the European Court of Human Rights, but despite winning in 2005, the UK Government has yet to implement the Court's judgment 4 years later, much to the frustration of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers.

In a recent Interim Resolution, the CoM has not only indicated its frustration at the substantial delay, but also that the next GE election faces a significant risk of failing to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights.

So is the Government deliberately stalling and does it intend to grant prisoner's the right to vote in advance of the next election?

Given that granting voting rights to prisoners is unlikely to be...er...very popular, any delay would be entirely understandable, Tom Harris MP certainly thinks so (my emphasis in bold):

Do I give a stuff that the Council of Europe is a bit annoyed at the UK for (ahem!) dragging our feet on implementing the court’s ruling? No, not really.

However, the issue of the ECHR's judgment, and the Government's slow response was raised in the House of Lords yesterday, and after some protracted non-answers by Lord Bach, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice, was this exchange (again me in bold):

Lord Pannick: My Lords, does the Minister accept that one reason for the considerable concern about the extraordinary length of time that the Government have taken to implement a decision dated 6 October 2005 is that they appear deliberately to be delaying this matter until after the next general election? Can the Minister give the House an unequivocal assurance that that is no part and has been no part of the Government's motivation?

Lord Bach: Yes.

So whom to believe?