A trip down memory lane

A trip down memory lane

Prisoners lose landmark court vote case

Three prisoners today lost their landmark High Court battle to be allowed to vote.

Their case, against the 1983 Representation of the People Act, was unanimously rejected by two senior judges in London.

Lord Justice Kennedy and Mr Justice Garland said the men's case had been too simplistic and the issue of prisoners voting "is plainly a matter for Parliament and not for the courts".

If successful, the case would have allowed the UK's 64,000 prisoners to vote at elections.

The inmates – a drug smuggler, an arsonist and a man serving life for manslaughter – said the 1983 Act was incompatible with their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, as set out in the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Lord Justice Kennedy said: "As the Home Secretary said, Parliament has taken the view that for the period during which they are in custody convicted prisoners have forfeited their right to have a say in the way the country is governed."

There was a "broad spectrum" among democratic societies over whether or not prisoners should have the vote, and the UK "falls into the middle of the spectrum".

The judge said that, in the course of time, the position might move – "but its position in the spectrum is plainly a matter for Parliament, not for the courts".

The prisoners who launched today's application for judicial review were Anthony Pearson, serving 10 years for importing drugs; Richard Martinez, serving life after being convicted in 1996 of arson with intent to endanger life; and John Hirst, serving life at Nottingham prison for manslaughter.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, for two of the inmates, asked for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal "because of the importance of the issues to many thousands of potential voters".

But the judge, who agreed that matters of "high constitutional importance" had been raised, rejected the application.

For those of you who are ignorant of this case, one thing is for sure the two judges were wrong to dismiss it as being too simplistic. I felt that the judges were trying to insult my intelligence, and not giving me any credit for my study of English law. However, let's put my feeling aside for now, because Charles Falconer later stated the case was anything but simplistic. "On 2 February 2006 the Lord Chancellor announced in a written statement that there would be a public consultation about prisoners’ voting rights following the recent ECtHR judgment:
The recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Hirst, concerning prisoners' voting rights, has raised a number of difficult and complex issues which need careful consideration". Charles Falconer was also wrong to make his claim.

I won't insult the judges intelligence. It should have been a simple matter for them to declare the obvious, that is, that section 3 of the Representation of the Peoples Act 1983 is incompatible with Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention. The former denies a human right which the latter has granted. Any fool can see the difference between them. Here we have two qualified, professional, judges who arrived at the wrong decision. In my view, it was not a mistake. Rather, it was a deliberate attempt by judges, who's job it is to dispense justice, to deny 3 prisoners justice. They went out of their way in order not to reach a legal or judicial decision, and instead made a political decision. If they had desired to reach a political decision why didn't they instead become part of the Executive rather than join the Judiciary? Under English law we have a Separation of Powers so that balances and checks are supposed to protect the citizen from abuse of power by an arm of the state. When the Executive and the Judiciary conspire to join forces against the individual citizen, I would suggest that other citizens start to get concerned. Because if it can happen to me it can just as easily happen to you.

Now, let's look at what Charles Falconer has said. There is nothing preventing the government from holding a public consultation exercise. However, if one is held then it has to meet certain legal standards of fairness and not be flawed. In my view, the one arranged by Charles Falconer is unlawful. I cannot state the reasons for this right now because it is to be the subject of a Judicial Review, and I have no intention of assisting the government lawyers by giving them the opportunity to prepare a defence until I am required by law to provide them with my grounds for them to peruse. Personally, I cannot see the point of a public consultation exercise in this particular case. The UK government has been bound to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights since 1953. Under the Convention, the UK must comply with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. The Court has stated that section 3 of the Representation of the Peoples Act 1983 is incompatible with Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention. The UK is required to take the necessary steps to amend the law which has led to the violation of my human rights. The Court was quite specific that I was a victim. If the situation is not remedied in time for the next General Election there could well be over 50,000 such victims. What Charles Falconer should have said is that the government are trying to make it appear to be more complex and difficult than it really is. This is because MPs feel that by giving votes to prisoners, the MPs themselves will lose votes from their constituents. In other words, its not a vote winner for them. So, they have decided collectively to deny convicted prisoners their human right to vote for their own greedy ends. I will give the Courts and government until 17-19 March 2009 to remedy the situation or face the consequences.