Tag: Prisoner Voting
In the name of parliamentary sovereignty: how the conflict between the UK government and the courts over prisoner voting rights was really about executive power
In UK political disputes over European Court of Human Rights judgments, such as the high-profile objections to rulings on prisoner voting, much political capital is made out of the claim that the European Court is impinging on UK parliamentary sovereignty. However, Helen Hardman argues that the objections have instead been based on concern that court rulings would limit the decision-making powers of the government, rather than the independence and sovereignty of parliament. Archival and interview data demonstrate that the strategic purpose of the stand-off against the European Court was directed at weakening the European Convention system because it empowers UK domestic courts to effectively challenge government policy.
Prisoner voting rights are another intractable struggle over Europe’s architecture for protecting human rights
Last week, an appeal by a French prisoner to the EU’s top court against his voting ban revived the debate about prisoner voting rights in the UK. Colin Murray writes that although the appeal was unsuccessful, the ruling did not foreclose the possibility of future successful challenges to bans on prisoner voting. He suggests that it is highly likely […]
Prisoners should be allowed to share the responsibility of democracy through voting
Prisoners continue to be disenfranchised, despite apparently being on the wrong side of a number of legal cases brought to the European Court of Human Rights. Helen Brown Coverdale argues that the Government should allow prisoners to vote, and that doing so would build legitimacy, benefit prisoners in their rehabilitation, and uphold human rights. Similar […]
Prisoner voting for the final general election before release is a solution that balances concerns about democratic rights
Democratic Audit has recently featured analysis of prisoner voting rights from several leading experts. In the second of two new contributions to this debate – following Peter Ramsay’s earlier post – Chris Bennett and Daniel Viehoff argue that both sides of the debate can make strong claims to democratic principles. They make a new proposal that […]
Letting prisoners vote would undermine the idea that civil liberties are fundamental to democratic citizenship
Parliament is currently considering how to relax the UK’s restrictions on prisoner voting, which have been deemed in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. In one of two new contributions to the debate – alongside Chris Bennett and Daniel Viehoff’s post – Peter Ramsay sets out the democratic argument against prisoner enfranchisement. He argues that enfranchising […]
Denying prisoners the vote creates a barrier to their reintegration into society
Parliament is currently considering how to relax the UK’s restrictions on prisoner voting, which have been deemed in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. In this post Nicola Lacey argues that our ongoing failure to extend voting rights to prisoners creates a powerful symbol of their exclusion from full membership of society. Similar […]
The UKs muddled approach to prisoner voting rights looks set to continue
The UK’s continued delay in responding to the issue of prisoner voting has spawned a hydra-headed legal debacle. Whereas countries like Ireland quickly passed legislation to enfranchise prisoners following a 2005 European Court decision, the then Labour Government vacillated, seemingly hoping that if delayed for long enough the problem would go away. It didn’t go away, but […]
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