Disenfranchisement.

Disenfranchisement.

by Anna Raccoon on February 8, 2010



The “Barred from Voting” campaign deserves some credit for illustrating their cause with perhaps the most exotic and least likely to elicit a sympathetic response, sector of the vast population of disenfranchised. They solely represent the 83,000 prison population in the British Isles.

I take no issue with John Hirst on this particular point, he has doggedly and successfully pursued his quarry – the British Government – through every court in the land, and on to Strasbourg, resulting in the Hirst v UK (No2) decision which may yet see the Government paying out millions of pounds to British prisoners in compensation for not implementing the ECtHR ruling that the government was in violation of Article 3, Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to vote.

Prisoners incontrovertibly have an interest in who precisely is making the legislation that governs their stay at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, and I see no merit in the argument that part of their punishment should be further removing them from engagement in civic society. No legislation without representation may well be their motto. That prisoners might not be best disposed towards the government responsible for the laws which currently see them incarcerated may account for the strange reluctance of this ‘Equality for all’ Government to implement the ECtHR recommendations.

I am slightly bemused that ‘Barred from Voting’ should have taken up such a narrow remit. As Jess the Dog pointed out, most would agree that those who risk their lives to defend democracy should be the first in line to participate in it – and he gives a thorough airing to the problems faced by our armed forces in taking their place in the democratic process. More than worth reading. ‘No regimentation with representation’ does not seem to appeal to the Harmanisation of Equality Laws – do they fear a backlash at the ballot box if too many of the armed forces are able to access their vote?