Prisoners Votes Case: Latest news

Prisoners Votes Case: Latest news

Committee of Ministers meets today

We acted for Mr. Hirst in this case and have written to the Committee of
Ministers before. We understand the Committee is due to meet in
December. We invite the Committee to begin rule 11 infringement
proceedings under the following circumstances:
1. In April 2006 the U.K. Government presented an Action Plan to comply
with the Judgment which was itself adopted in August 2005.
2. This was later varied and a revised plan/timetable published by which
draft legislation was to be produced by May 2008.
3. The first stage consultation paper was published on 1st December
2006. The consultation finished 3 months later in March 2007.
4. The second stage consultation paper was issued on 8th April 2009 -
two years later.
5. The second stage consultation finished on 29th September 2009.
6. The U.K. Parliament's Joint Committee of Human Rights in its 2008
Annual Report criticises the delay and points out that any further delay
may result in the next election taking place in a way that is
incompatible with the Convention.
7. The next U.K. General Election must take place by June 2010 at the
latest.
8. The Uk has announced its proposals for legislation for the next
parliamentary term, which will take it to the next election. There are
no proposals for dealing with the Hirst Judgment.
9. The U.K. Government has been reported as stating that it has no
intention of introducing legislation to comply with the Hirst Judgment
before the next General Election.
It therefore follows that prisoners will remain unlawfully
disenfranchised at the next General Election unless the Court and /or
the Committee of Ministers is able to persuade or compel the U.K.
Government to change its position.
Under these circumstances we ask the Committee to serve the U.K.
Government with formal notice of its intention to refer to the Court the
Question of whether the Government has failed to fulfil its obligation.
We ask the Committee to consider waiving the normal 6 month notice
period and substituting a 2 month notice period given that there is so
little time before the next General Election must take place.


Elkan Abrahamson
Partner

Jackson & Canter LLP
32 Princes Road
Liverpool
L8 1TH

t: 0151 282 1732
f: 0151 282 1735

Dear Mr Abahamson,

Thank you for your mail. Rule 11 proceedings are not yet available as they require the entry into force of Protocol No. 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which, as I am sure you know, has not yet taken place as one member state has not yet ratified it. Your remarks on the Hirst case have been communicated to the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the Secretariat of the Council of Europe.

Best wishes,

Simon Palmer
Principal Administrator (Execution)
Secretariat of the Committee of Ministers


Protocol 14

Protocol 14 follows on from Protocol 11 in further improving the efficiency of operation of the Court. It seeks to "filter" out cases that have less chance of succeeding along with those that are broadly similar to cases brought previously against the same member state. Furthermore a case will not be considered admissible where an applicant has not suffered a "significant disadvantage". This latter ground can only be used when an examination of the application on the merits is not considered necessary and where the subject-matter of the application had already been considered by a national court.
A new mechanism is introduced with Protocol 14 to assist enforcement of judgements by the Committee of Ministers. The Committee can ask the Court for an interpretation of a judgement and can even bring a member state before the Court for non-compliance of a previous judgement against that state.
Protocol 14 also allows the European Union to accede to the Convention, an issue which also depended on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, in light of the fact that the European Community previously lacked the competence to accede to human rights treaties.
The protocol has been signed by every Council of Europe member state. Currently only Russia has not yet ratified the protocol. It will only come into force only when it has been ratified by all Council of Europe member states.
In 2009, a provisional protocol No. 14bis was opened for signature. It allows single judges to reject manifestly inadmissible applications against protocol's member states and extends the competence of three-judge committees to declare applications against protocol's member states admissible and decide on their merits where there already is a well-established case law of the Court.


Bullshit Alert

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

UPDATE:

Elkan has emailed...

"You will be pleased to know that as a result of the Hirst judgment Latvia gave prisoners the vote!".