Tag Archives: votes for prisoners

Kirsten de Keyser

Votes for Prisoners? Cameron says no! What would Borgen do?

By Kirsten de Keyser | Fri 23rd November 2012 - 12:51 pm

David Cameron reputedly vowed that prisoners “will be allowed to vote over my dead body”. Don’t give us any ideas Dave… We know that the current blanket ban has been judged unlawful by The European Court of Human Rights, and we presumably don’t want to break the law. I mean, that could land us all in the collective slammer, without the right to vote. Not a clever idea, given that the current UK voter turnout is already among the lowest in Western Europe.

So what would Borgen do? Well, nothing actually, as Danish prisoners have enjoyed the unfettered right to vote since the 1930s. And that’s despite the fact that our Danish cousins

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Sensible decision from European Court on prisoner voting rights

By Mark Pack | Wed 23rd May 2012 - 7:25 am

The BBC reports:

The European Court of Human Rights has said individual governments can decide how to implement a ban on convicted prisoners voting.

The judgement means the UK will be able to decide for itself how to resolve the long-standing row over votes for prisoners.

But the court says the UK only has six months to outline its proposed reforms…

In a summary of its judgement, the court said it “accepted the Government’s argument that each State has a wide discretion as to how it regulates the ban, both as

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Posted in Election law | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Government loses final appeal over votes for prisoners

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th April 2011 - 10:54 pm

The Press Association reports:

The Government has lost its final appeal against a human rights ruling requiring Britain to give prisoners the vote.

Prime Minister David Cameron – who said the thought of granting the vote to criminals made him physically ill – now has six months to produce “legislative proposals” ending the current blanket ban on inmates voting in national and European elections.

Posted in Election law | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

Votes for (some) prisoners to get a vote in Parliament

By Mark Pack | Tue 18th January 2011 - 8:34 pm

The BBC’s Nick Robinson reports:

David Davis and Jack Straw have got their way. The Commons will get the chance to vote – probably in the middle of February – for a motion to defy the European Court of Human Rights on prisoner voting…

The prime minister welcomes the plan for the Commons to hold a debate on whether prisoners should be given the vote as demanded by the European Court of Human Rights and believes that it “could be helpful”, I’m told. David Cameron is said to want as few prisoners as possible to be given the vote and is still

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Posted in Election law and News | Also tagged and | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

Labour members attack party’s “Daily Mail view of the world”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 7th January 2011 - 7:25 am

Another day, another nail in the coffin of liberalism in the Labour Party. Sadiq Khan, the party’s shadow justice secretary, today amped-up the debate on votes for prisoners by condemnIng the Coalition’s proposals as — POPULIST CLICHE ALERT — “a slap in the face for victims of crime”.

But his pandering to the forces of authoritarian conservatism hasn’t gone down well with all Labour members. Over at LabourList, Kevin Peel has an excellent post criticising Mr Khan’s outburst, pointing out that no matter what you think of the decision the UK was under a legal obligation following a …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

Reactions to plans to give some prisoners the right to vote

By Mark Pack | Fri 31st December 2010 - 3:58 pm

Just before Christmas we covered the government’s plans to give the vote to prisoners serving sentences of less than four years, a delayed response to the adverse court ruling on the current rules from 2005 which the Labour government had not yet properly responded to.

Unsurprisingly, the plans have triggered opposition in some parts of the Conservative Party, including from Paul Goodman over on ConservativeHome: “The essence of the Clegg/Harper case is that the Government has no alternative. However, there at least four”.

Carl Gardner on his Head of Legal blog explains the legal background in more detail:

Obviously this

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Government publishes details of plans to give prisoners the vote

By Mark Pack | Mon 20th December 2010 - 8:09 pm

Earlier today the Government laid out in detail how it plans to abide by a court ruling against the current ban on prisoners voting in elections.

The plans, due to be put to the vote in Parliament next year, separate prisoners into two categories – those sentenced to four years or longer (who will be banned from registering to vote) and those on shorter sentences, who will normally be entitled to register to vote but on sentencing a judge will have discretion to remove their right to vote also.

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Posted in Election law and News | 8 Comments
John Hirst

Independent View: votes for prisoners

By John Hirst | Tue 20th April 2010 - 6:48 pm

At the last general election, I voted for the first time, and gave it to Diana Johnson Labour MP for Hull North. When it came to the local election I voted for the Lib Dem candidate. Notwithstanding Dizzy Thinks posting this on the 1st of April, I just had to have a go at it: “For anyone confused about how they might vote at the General Election, Vote Match 2010 has now been launched. It’s pretty straight forward multiple choice survey that will match what you think against what the political parties have told Vote Match they think”. …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , and | 78 Comments
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