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I wonder how hard both the previous and current govs looked into this?

It's pretty obvious that the current gov haven't tried that hard at all; another wishy-washy approach to policy that's become entangled in Westminster.

Surely with all the world-class highliy paid lawyers we have in this country we can find a loop hole? How about victims' rights?

Well let's hope that whatever he does he pays more attention to the legal advice given to him than one of his predecessors.

Because in the end, that's what this will boil down to, won't it 成人论坛? Despite your attempts to stir the nest he will do as his legal team tells him.

If only a certain T Blair had listened to his Attorney General he might not now be facing a recall to the Chilcott enquiry.

Prime ministers should listen to legal advice. He will be told which side to support. It's a complete non story.

It's grim up north London...

What a fiasco - a government so disordered it's own MPs are forced to rebel.

It's not even clear that this sentence less than X years nonsense is going to work in court.

Personally I'm not that concerned about the votes issue - the way in which they plan to release thousands of criminals on to the streets is far more of an issue to me.

There is basic principle about whether an unelected court in another country should be able to overrule an elected parliament though. Perhaps the MPs are correct to show some balls where the weak government has none. Not sure this the best issue they could have picked to do it on.

Ho hum - this is simply red top politics. All mouth and no trousers as my grandmother used to say.

It is chance for the UK to pretend it has retained more independence from the EU and the European Human Rights regime than is in fact the case.

It is a chance to talk about an issue that in the greater scheme of things is not terribly important.

The problem with the ECHR is that they have declared that it is against someone's human rights to refuse them permission to vote but they are still apparently willing to allow governments to restrict certain people's movements based on past actions. Prisoners have, under due process of the law, undergone a legal battle which has seen certain of their human rights suspended. Why are governments allowed to restrict someone's movement but not allowing them a vote is wrong? It seems ludicrous to me that people who have broken the law are allowed some Human rights but not others.

Don't mention this to the ECHR or they are likely to make any violation of human rights for convicted criminals illegal and then the criminal justice system would be an even bigger joke than it currently is.

This isn't so much about the merits and demerits of removing the Right To Vote from prisoners - a bizarre notion - but more a receptacle for anti-EU sentiment. As such, and as always, it's a difficult issue for the Conservatives. David Davis is meant to be big on civil liberties, for example, but obviously not those which flow from the European Court of Human Rights. And I don't know what Jack Straw is playing at, guy seems to be going more and more Golf-Club. Probably an age thing. Shape up, Jack.

It is not surprising that the Tories do not want to give prisoners an opportunity to participate in the democratic processes and the pressure within the Tory party is going to end in a mess. However it is shameful that the defiance of the ECHR ruling should be lead by a senior labour MP. Some on the right probably would not be satisfied until all prisoners were routinely tortured but there is no excuse for Jack Straw pandering to the political red necks. There is nothing to be gained by continuing to prevent prisoners from voting and some value in them participating in democracy and taking an interest in politics as a feature of rehabilitation, even though some politicians are not a model of honesty and moral integrity. This could be an interesting one for all leaders including Miliband who must be tempted to play to the populous gallery.

I don't see why we can't just tell the EU to get lost and not give anyone in prison serving any current sentence a vote of any sort.
People who commit crimes and are convicted should leave all but their most basic human rights at the prison gates.
When will our society start caring more about the victims of crime than the criminals themselves? I ask the question because I believe that this is what the vast amjority of decent people think and surely at least some pretence of democracy should be maintained.

We are currently in a worldwide depression and this subject is all our elected representatives are concerned about at the moment. You just couldn't make it up.

Weep Britain.

So the government has realized that MPs don't feel the need themselves to be bound by the law. Surprise, surprise.

Will they allow us ordinary mortals to take the same attitude to laws we dislike?

Saga - I thought Jack should just retire but then I thought maybe this was a clever ploy by him.

He stirs up the anti-EU sentiment in the Tory right, reminding them that even after 13 years of Blair/Brown they still can do nothing about power slowly draining away to European institutions.

The anti EU Tories are a funny lot constantly bleating but never achieving anything. They remind of that joke about the bear and the hunter - "You don't come here just for the hunting".

I think the EU skeptics rather like maintaining their little Englander purity without ever having to addresss the consequences of their ideas.

sagamix...

That comment about Jack Straw is the funniest thing I have read for some time.

May I add that Ed Balls is going more and more provincial night club bouncer the more he settles into his role as shadow home secretary. The angry look, the slightly too tight suit, the jabs of the finger, that mangled speech, it's all a bit Paddy and Max.

It's grim up north London...

Bring back caputal punishement for murder,rape and peado's

That will sort out one set of voting rights.

DebtJuggler @ 9 wrote:
"We are currently in a worldwide depression"

>>

Not only are we not in a worldwide depression, we aren't even in recession.


"you just couldn't make it up"

>>

It seems you could. (See above.)

Quinn@8 - seems to you don't really understand just how many powers and limits on our sovereignty have been given up by the UK in various EU and European Treaties.

On balance I think that is a good thing. It does make me very sad, however, that you do not even appear to know that it has happened.

"13. At 11:50am on 20 Jan 2011, IR35_SURVIVOR wrote:
Bring back caputal punishement for murder,rape and peado's

That will sort out one set of voting rights."

So you'd have been in favour of executing Roger Beardmore, convicted in 1998 of repeatedly raping a girl over a 3 year period between her 3rd and 7th birthday?

Don't you think a long jail sentence is better?

9. DebtJuggler

Agree. Four blogs on this while the country's frontline services are taking a kicking, our education system is being tinkered with yet again, his Holiness Tone of Baghdad and Kabul is once more in the dock and Katy Price is going through another marital break-up.

Where's the balance?

"Another camp argues that it's time to find some more lawyers with different advice."

Damn right it is. Given the supposed illegality of other bigger issues (how about Iraq for a start), its about time a certain someone in the executive grew a pair and told the cons where to get off.

And if he cant or wont, then maybe its time he stood aside for someone who would, rather than keep on trying to kick it into the long grass. Thats what Straw and Co did before for five years, if I recall correctly and the time has finally come to face it down. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Just because the turkeys have a phobia about voting for Christmas, it does not stop Christmas from coming one day.

We should take a leaf out of Sarkozy's book and tell the ambulance chasing bloodsuckers to stick it where the sun doesnt shine.

The cons dont give a fig for getting the vote! Most of them I would venture, if not all of them, would have failed to vote before they were banged up, probably because while Mr or Mrs Law Abiding Citizen was at the polling booth, one of these ratbags was probably stealing their car or turning over their house, or robbing their disabled kid's wheelchair.

The only reason the convicts are interested in this, is because, under the current bleeding heart quasi-liberal political class, theres a good chance of free money from the state and plenty of it.

Thats all they're interested in, nothing else, not in being "disenfranchised" or any of that sopping wet "its all society's fault that the poor darlings turned to crime" garbage!

IR35 @ 13 wrote:
Bring back caputal punishement for murder,rape and peado's

>>

Are you referring to child molesters or skimpy swimwear? Both are criminal, IMO.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This is not an issue I feel strongly about one way or another but surely pragmatism should hold sway - rather than waste public money defending possible court cases against the EHR rulings.

Must be better things we could be getting on with... always worry about David Davis's motivation, antagonising the Cameron seems to be his main aim.

Remind me again. Who exactly runs this country? Is it Westminster, Brussels or the legal profession?

If Cameron had a pair he'd simply tell Brussels to bog off and tell the legal eagles representing the banged up to do the same. Judges may rule against him but what are they going to do? Throw in jail for contempt? I think not.

Time to take back control of our destiny.

Does anyone know what would happen if Parliament refuses to ratify this diktat from the ECHR? Would it result in a fine, or something more serious?

I am aware that this is unlikely the government will refuse to ratify this, as I suspect Cameron to be a closet Europhile, but just as a hypothetical situation.

If local government councilors voted for a policy, in spite of legal advice, which cost the ratepayers large sums of money, they would be surcharged and possibly prohibited from serving as councilors in the future.

What a pity the same rule does not apply to MPs. Perhaps they would not then be so keen to try to deprive prisoners of their human rights.

The lack of understanding of the purpose of the declaration of universal human rights, cultivated deliberately by parts of the media, is appalling. It is shocking that Davis and Straw, who surely must know better, should be promoting this action. Presumably their motives are to embarrass their own front benches.

#23
Spike, my understanding is that the ECHR cannot force states to comply with its rulings, but, ultimately, states could be expelled from the Council of Europe!
I believe that UK is not alone in denying prisoners the vote.

Alan Johnson has resigned.

24 Stanblogger,

Your lack of understanding of the sovereignty of Parliament is only matched by your ignorance of the history and purpose of the ECHR.

Local councillors do not have the power to make laws and have a duty to abide by the lawmaking decisons of parliament, which is the repository of legislative power in this country. Parliament is sovereign.

The ECHR when introduced shortly after WW2, was an important statement of the basic rights of every person. It was a statement of belief from the liberal West aimed at the repressive countries behind the Iron Curtain. Articles such as the right to life, right to family life, freedom of expression etc meant something in eastern bloc countries where people were executed or shipped to gulags and worked to death for expressing peaceful political opinions.

Now we are treated to the disgusting sight of this noble statement of principle being subverted. Those who, having the considerable fortune to live in a liberal democracy in which the repressive regimes of the eastern bloc seem a world away, choose to abuse that freedom to commit crimes, infringing the human rights of others in a serious way, are then using the ECHR to claim they should be given those rights which they were legitimately stripped of by due process of law when convicted.

Prisoners on remand, who have yet to be convicted are entitled to vote. No others are: that is the settled will of the people as expressed through Parliament.

On a side note it seems very likely these prisoners are claiming legal aid for their spurious challenges, the govt could stop that for starters. Then we will see how much the disgusting "human rights" lawyers really believe in what they are doing or just wanting to line their own pockets with money from the rest of us.

13. At 11:50am on 20 Jan 2011, IR35_SURVIVOR wrote:

Bring back caputal punishement for murder,rape and peado's

That will sort out one set of voting rights.
===============================================================================

This person must be a time traveller from 1850!

1. the ECHR is NOT part of the EU. The UK is subject to its jurisdiction because we signed the declaration on Human Rights. This may cause some inconvenient & unwelcome results, but is actually a guarantee of the human rights and freedoms of us all.
2. #2 perhaps you should get this particular bee out of your bonnet. As the Attorney General said at the time & before Chilcott, he did advise the then PM that the war against Iraq was legal. The recent stuff has been about what Blair said publicly at the time, which Goldsmith accepts may have been part of the campaign to encourage Saddam to disclose his WMDs. rather than taking any opportunity to raise an issue not germane to this HYS, why don't you await Chilcott's findings?

3. I fear that too many people use such occasions to let off their Europhobic bile. And does it matter anyway? - there will be plenty of criminals, benefit fraudsters, paedophiles, rapists, wife-beaters, drug addicts, alcoholics etc who DO have the right to vote & presumably do so. Ex-prisoners can vote. Giving prisoners the vote won't affect the outcome of any election. This is the classic current British obsession with making a mountain out of a molehill because it's a nice simple subject on which everyone has a view & tends to get hot under the collar, but in the greater scheme of things is trivial. It's a pity the media & we can't concentrate on more important issues.

22. At 12:54pm on 20 Jan 2011, Wee-Scamp wrote:

If Cameron had a pair he'd simply tell Brussels to bog off and tell the legal eagles representing the banged up to do the same. Judges may rule against him but what are they going to do? Throw in jail for contempt? I think not.

We'd be fined vast amounts of money that we would eventually have to pay, one way or another. Standing fast, making rude gestures and telling France that we need a go with the aircraft carrier is not an option.
What on Earth is the practical point of disenfranchising prisoners? Or any point at all?

23. At 12:55pm on 20 Jan 2011, Spike Milligan wrote:
Does anyone know what would happen if Parliament refuses to ratify this diktat from the ECHR? Would it result in a fine, or something more serious?

=========================

It is not a dictat, the ruling was made on the arbitrary nature of the current rule, we can decide to put to law something other than all vote which is easiest but not right in my view. There are many mechanisms which could be proposed and have been,

1/3rd of signatories to the ECHR have a rule none can vote, 1/3rd have rules all can vote and 1/3rd have a restriction in some form.
Belgium even restricts the rights to some released prisoners to vote.

We can ignore it and do nothing, what happens then is lots of scum bags make claims for compensation for losing a "right" they don't value and couldn't be bothered to exercise if they had it because they might get some money for nothing from the taxpayer. We then have to do something anyway to stem this bonanza for criminals.

wee-scamp 22

You said it all for me, you are exactly right.

This is a very important test of Cameron's moral compass and resolve, and at the moment he is failing badly.

I would not care how much it cost the Country, this issue transcends any importance money has. The reason is, voting rights for prisoners sends a message out to society, that even if you break the law your rights will be protected. What about the rights of victims, they seem to have none in British society anymore.

The thought that this may now, include voting rights for all prisoners is sickening.

How much further does the UK have to fall morally and economically before we learn some sense.

Here's my solution. We are about to have fixed length Parliaments so we know the time of each General Election, local elections are on a fixed timetable. My suggestion is that prisoners can vote if they are due for release (having served a full term - not earliest release date) before the next election. This way they would be voting for the society they will be released into and therefore feeling part of it (a little).

rr7 @ 12

"Ed Balls is going more and more provincial night club bouncer the more he settles into his role as shadow home secretary."

Shadow CHANCELLOR, Robin, I think you mean. Get with it.

Who cares. Alan Johnson has resigned and Ed Balls is chancellor. Happy days.

What is the situation in other European countries?

My solution would be to have a prison MP. He could then be ignored.

JH 66

" Lord Hoffman has called for us to recover a sense of constitutional history, and to set a clear distinction between the role of human rights and the role of politics. 鈥淭he value of [International Human Rights standards] should be derived less from their status or acts by an assembly or international organisation than from their success or otherwise in expressing truths about the dignity of human beings鈥�.

From this can be a paradox, which I will not explain. 鈥淩ight,the substantive right, is the child of law: from real laws come real rights; but from imaginary laws, from laws of nature, fancied and invented by poets, rhetoricians and dealers in intellectual poisons, come imaginary rights鈥�. (Jeremy Bentham).

On this issue the 鈥榙ealers of intellectual poisons鈥� are primarily of a Labour/Lib Dem political disposition."

Lord Hoffman`s gives a moral definition of universal human rights standards as supporting "The dignity of man".An example would be the "Freedoms" established by the charter of the UN at the end of WW2,and the moral beliefs underlying human rights legislation by the ECHR.

Law on the other hand is a codification of rules which vary widely from culture to culture.It embodies moral standards, but not universal ones.Hence the potential conflict between law and morality,especially for dissidents, or external critics of a particular legal code.What you condemn as the "Intellectual poisons" emanating from the left, reflect your own particular values and cannot be generalized.

I have always found Jeremy Bentham confused.Part of it comes from his own intellectual temperament,succinctly expressed by Bertrand Russell.To paraphrase:He always behaved with complete altruism, while believing that self interest was the fundamental principle of human behaviour.This is possibly the source of the paradox you detected, because in dismissing the idea of human rights as nonsense, and the rights of man as "Nonsense on stilts,he was only able to base the notion of rights in substantive legal codes,some of which can be very immoral indeed to minorities,outgroups and whatever.

To base law on

BoilerBill 33

Here's my solution. Let the British electorate decide by electing a government that determines prisoners voting rights. It's called democracy.

"35. At 5:49pm on 20 Jan 2011, jobsagoodin wrote:
Who cares. Alan Johnson has resigned and Ed Balls is chancellor. Happy days."

It's really not that bad. He's SHADOW chancellor.

32. At 5:41pm on 20 Jan 2011, Susan-Croft wrote:
I would not care how much it cost the Country, this issue transcends any importance money has.

You're not a banker are you by any chance, Susan?

The reason is, voting rights for prisoners sends a message out to society, that even if you break the law your rights will be protected. What about the rights of victims, they seem to have none in British society anymore.

The fact victims' rights are not suffuciently protected is no reason to ride roughshod over prisoners' rights. The withdrawal of a prisoners' democratic right to vote for his or her representative would change absolutely nothing. Woolly thinking again there, Susan.

Whistling Neil 31

Did you read the update ?

'The Government's continuing prevarication is likely to be unlawful and costly. The European Court of Human Rights' judgments are clear that all prisoners should be given the vote. Any attempt to limit the right to vote to certain prisoners, while excluding others, is likely to be unlawful and almost inevitably lead to further legal challenge and claims for compensation."

Its_an_outrage

'The withdrawal of a prisoners' democratic right '

It's your opinion that this is a right. I have a different opinion. We resolve these differences through a process known as democracy.

Compensation for what? Being a convicted criminal? For being an unrepentant and inhuman person? And who decides how much is paid? We have a right to know. If there is this money available it should go to the victims, or victims' families. And another question: why does human rights legislation appear to apply only to criminals and terrorists and not to victims, either here or in the EU? I won't hold my breath.
Regards, etc.

42. At 6:35pm on 20 Jan 2011, jobsagoodin wrote:
Its_an_outrage

It's your opinion that this is a right.


My opinion on the subject has never been sought, Jobs. I have never been invited to take the government into my confidence regarding the law. My word, there'd be some changes though, I can tell you. Oh, yes indeed.

Its_an_Outrage 40

Yep, well Outrage at least I think.

Neil 31

I think your posts on this issue have been outstanding. Thank you.

"The fact victims' rights are not suffuciently protected is no reason to ride roughshod over prisoners' rights."

Technically correct, but odious nonetheless, given that there is hardly any such thing any more as a victimless crime. You commit a crime against a fellow human being, unprovoked or otherwise, one way or another you have to atone for it. Particularly in capital cases, where the victim is, regardless of what happens to the perpetrator, disproportionately affected - what, or who is lost can never be brought back, regardless of how long the perp may spend in the chokey. The law has to be a deterrent to committing of crime. If not, you might as well not bother and we may as well just settle for anarchy and vigilantes wandering the streets.

With rights come responsibilities. Some are only concerned with rights and couldnt give a stuff about the responsibilities that come with it, both to themselves and their fellow citizens.