Votes for prisoners: time for action not words

Votes for prisoners: time for action not words

Former prisoner John Hirst, one of those primarily responsible in forcing the government to change its stance on voting rights for prisoners, highlights the government’s delaying tactics, which may well have serious consequences at the next General Election.

Prisoners may hold the key to the legal validity of the next General Election, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) concluded in its Annual Report published on 31 October 2008. The JCHR, which is made up of two MPs from each of the three main political parties and two members from each in the House of Lords, is charged with the task of monitoring and reporting upon the government’s response to judgments in the European Court of Human Rights. In the Prisoners Votes Case, the JCHR accuses the government of a ‘reluctance to deal with this issue’.

The government claims: “The implementation of the Hirst judgment is a sensitive and complex issue and we need to look very carefully at what the right approach should be and how it should be implemented”. However the JCHR states that my case is legally straightforward but politically difficult, and that the government is being unreasonable with the delay of legislating to allow at least some convicted prisoners the vote. The JCHR cites, for example, that both Ireland and Cyprus have passed Bills to allow all prisoners to vote; the implication being that these countries have not found it politically difficult at all.

When the JCHR report was published, only the Observer and my own blog picked up and ran with the story. This is extremely disappointing, given the newsworthiness of the JCHR’s dire warning to the government to pull its finger out, or else. As I understand it, the Observer article was in response to the Prison Reform Trust pulling some strings, and Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty intends to jump on the bandwagon as the campaign for prisoners’ votes is stepped up. It is worth repeating what Jamie Doward wrote in the Observer:

“Human rights group warns that without a change in the law, Britain's next election could be invalid. 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”.

What we have here is a political hot potato. The campaign was supported by the former LibDem leader Charles Kennedy, and when asked by the Daily Mail whether he supported Ian Huntley getting the vote he said that he did. All of a sudden his drink problem made him an unfit leader and he was replaced by Menzies Campbell and Nick Clegg went against what the LibDems had voted for as policy, which is that all prisoners should have the vote. Nick Clegg went on to become the leader of the LibDems and is only in favour of some prisoners getting the franchise. This position is also shared by the Tories and Labour. It means that on this issue there is no effective opposition to the government.

In my view, the government has erred and complicated the issue by worrying, not for the first time, what the Sun says and what the Daily Mail will write. However, it is worth reminding ourselves what the ECHR said in its judgment:

“There is, therefore, no question that a prisoner forfeits his Convention rights merely because of his status as a person detained following conviction. Nor is there any place under the Convention system, where tolerance and broadmindedness are the acknowledged hallmarks of democratic society, for automatic disenfranchisement based on what might offend public opinion”.

In ‘Bricks of Shame’ Vivien Stern wrote: “There are supposed to be ‘no votes in prisons’ and no political prizes for doing something about them. Any politician brave enough either to tell the truth about them or grasp the nettle and try to change the way they are run is likely, so it is believed, to run into difficulties with public opinion. Yet the evidence that exists does not support the view of a vindictive public thirsting for more and harsher punishment”.

When the Suffragette Movement campaigned to get women the vote, they came up with the motto “Deeds not words” in response to Parliament wishing to talk about the vote rather than actually give women the vote. Similarly, the government decided to embark upon two public consultation exercises to determine whether prisoners should get the vote. However, this did not form part of the ECHR judgment in my case. Rather, I had pointed out the failure of Parliament to debate the issue. All the government has to do is draft a Bill for prisoners’ votes so that Parliament is able to debate the issue. I am bemused that the government tried stalling for time. Prisoners are masters when it comes to passing time. The time is up for the government. As far as prisoners are concerned, now is the time for action not words.