Prisoners could be given the vote by next year in a double offensive to force Jack Straw to implement a controversial European ruling.
By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor, Daily Telegraph
The blanket ban on inmates voting in elections, which dates back almost 140 years, was ruled unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights five years ago
Since then, the Government has undertaken a lengthy consultation process but is still to act on the ruling.
But the Justice Secretary is now facing twin pressure to change the law.
It could lead to some of the most reviled people in Britain – including Soham child killer Ian Huntley, serial killer Rosemary West, paedophile Roy Whiting and Charles Bronson, who has spent more than two decades in solitary confinement – given a say in electing politicians.
The Prison Reform Trust has made a formal complaint to the Council of Europe over the Government's "failure to comply" accusing it of deliberate delaying tactics.
And the killer at the centre of the original challenge is now planning more legal action to force the Government to act.
John Hirst, who killed his landlady with an axe, is preparing a judicial review over the failure to implement the ruling.
It is understood two other judicial reviews from serving prisoners are also being planned.
On his blog, Mr Hirst said: "Killing my landlady was an abuse of power.
"By the same token, the state is abusing power in relation to the Prisoners Votes Case and refusing to rectify the situation.
"It comes to something when a criminal leads a law-abiding life and MPs break the law."
But Lyn Costello, of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, said: "Punishment has become a dirty word.
"If you commit a violent crime and go to prison you give up some of your rights as a citizen for that period and that's the way it should be.
"You take away the right to vote of your victim when you kill them, so why should you have the vote?"
In March 2004, European judges ruled the blanket ban on prisoners having the right to vote, as re-emphasised in the Representation of People's Act 1983 breached their human rights.
The ban dates back to the Forfeiture Act of 1870.
The case was brought by Mr Hirst, who served 25 years of a life sentence after being jailed for the manslaughter of his landlady, Bronia Burton, in 1980.
The Government has openly objected to the ruling but has undertaken a consultation to look at how the laws could be changed, although it has not published responses or proposals.
Beyond giving all prisoners the right to vote, other possible options include limiting to prisoners with sentences of certain length or allowing judges to decide if voting rights should be taken away from individual.
As a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Government is officially bound by the ECHR's ruling.
Last October, MPs and peers on the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights warned that if a legislative solution is not in place before the next general election then "at least part of the prison population will be unlawfully disenfranchised".
The Prison Reform Trust complaint calls the ban an"unjustified relic from the past" and 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".
The Trust, Unlock (the National Association of Reformed Offenders) and other members of the Barred from Voting coalition are writing to the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, which meets in June, urging the Committee to ensure the UK "addresses its failure to comply with the judgement without further delay".
Director of the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet Lyon, said: "People are sent to prison to lose their liberty not their identity.
"Prisoners should be given every opportunity to payback 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."
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