Prisoner rights group lodges formal complaint over voting ban

Prisoner rights group lodges formal complaint over voting ban

Prison Reform Trust describes voting ban as unjustified relic from the past in complaint to Council of Europe

By Duncan Campbell in the Guardian Monday 30 March 2009 16.19 BST

A formal complaint is being lodged today with the Council of Europe over Britain's failure to give serving prisoners the vote. The complaint has been made on the fifth anniversary of the European court of human rights' ruling that the UK's blanket ban on prisoners voting was unlawful.

While many other countries, including Ireland, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey, now allow either all or some prisoners to vote, the UK has declined to introduce the measure. Former and current inmates have called on the government to allow prisoners the vote in time for the next election.

The Prison Reform Trust, which has lodged the complaint, called the ban "an unjustified relic from the past which does not protect public safety or act as an effective deterrent." Their complaint criticises the government's "delaying tactics" over the past five years and accuses successive justice ministers of being "preoccupied with political considerations rather than fairness or the rule of law."

A campaign to grant at least some prisoners the vote in the UK has been under way for a number of years but has been unsuccessful. A former prisoner, John Hirst, took the issue to the human rights court five years ago and won a ruling that a blanket ban was in conflict with European human rights laws.

The Prison Reform Trust, Unlock (the National Association of Reformed Offenders), and other members of the Barred from Voting coalition are also writing to the Council of Europe's committee of ministers, which meets in June, urging them to put pressure on the UK to comply.

"People are sent to prison to lose their liberty not their identity," said Juliet Lyon, director of the PRT. "Prison has an important job to do to prevent the next victim and release people less, not more, likely to offend again. Prisoners should be given every opportunity to pay back for what they have done, take responsibility for their lives and make plans for effective resettlement, and this should include maintaining their right to vote."

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said that the issue of prisoner voting rights was "sensitive and complex." He added: "The European court of human rights ruled in October 2005 that an absolute statutory bar on prisoner voting should not continue.

"However the court ruled that it was for the UK government to determine exactly to what extent, and to what category of prisoner, voting rights should be extended. The government will hold a second stage consultation process on this issue, examining all of the complex areas and options for discussion."

Hirst said he was confident that the government would have to reverse its position. "Prison reform works best when society and prisoners come together for the common good," he said. "In this issue the prisoners have the law on their side, and the government does not."

Currently, those barred from voting in the UK, apart from prisoners, are hereditary peers who are members of the House of Lords, life peers, patients detained in psychiatric hospitals as a result of their crimes, and those convicted in the previous five years of corrupt or illegal election practices. Remand prisoners, people imprisoned for contempt of court and fine defaulters held in prison are eligible to vote.

The current prison population is 83,000. If prisoners were given the right to vote, the likely method is that they would vote at their previous home address rather than in the constituency which houses the jail.