Euro judges end Government's bid to overturn prisoner voting rights
by Wendy Fuller, Daily Mirror 13/04/2011
The Government has lost its final appeal against a human rights ruling requiring Britain to give prisoners the vote.
David Cameron has six months to produce “legislative proposals” ending the current blanket ban on inmates voting in national and European elections.
The ultimatum was delivered by a five-judge panel of the European Court of Human Rights yesterday.
The PM said the Government must comply – or face possible compensation claims running into millions.
In November, when the original decision was made, the PM said: “It makes me physically ill to contemplate giving the vote to inmates.”
But judges are not insisting that all prisoners have the right, declaring only that it is a blanket ban which breaches the human rights code.
The Government is free to revoke the right for serious offenders and grant it only to small-time criminals.
Comment: The Government is not free to remove the right to vote for serious offenders.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
2 comments:
All prisoners should be allowed to vote regardless. What harm can it possibly do in an honest country. Unless of course we are NOT an honest country ??
I think that all prisoners should be allowed to vote and it possibly would breach their human rights if this was taken away.
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