Nosirp is Prison Backwards.

We recently had a workshop and we covered the controversial topic of whether or not a prisoner should be afforded the right to vote. The current position in the UK now is that they may not. Of course, there are many differing views on the matter. Personally (and this is my blog so everything I say, goes) I believe that they should be given the right to vote. Being given a custodial sentence is not merely punishment for punishment's sake but rather a process of rehabilitation prior to being reintroduced to society. As idealistic it may sound, compassion and empathy goes a long way!

The UK government has tried to prevent or at least postpone the introduction of amending legislation to allow prisoners the right to vote, possibly on political grounds. It is threatening to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights. Should this be the case, then there would be a massive change in the status and future of the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments, the European Convention, and the Council of Europe.
However, until that actually happens, we still can rely on the wordings of the 1998 Act. The UK is bound by its very own law which is to make sure that any domestic law is to be read in line with the rights meted out in the Convention. This means that it must comply with the directions from Strasbourg to introduce amending legislation to the effect that prisoners’ right to vote are not limited. As it stands, the UK government is in breach of its strict obligations under the Convention.

To conclude, the government would benefit from changing its restrictive approach to the reform of prisoner enfranchisement as it otherwise shows that they are willing to ignore not just human rights but also the basic principles of equality, fairness, proportionality and legality. There is scope for the development of law in this particular field to promote certainty in the law as well as to preserve basic human rights and hopefully, finality in litigation.