Prisoners to get vote after European court ruling

Key points

• Prisoners to get right to vote

• European court rules in inmates' favour

• Ruling criticised by prison officers and Lord Chancellor

Key quote

"The human rights court has agreed with me that the government's position is wrong - it doesn't matter how heinous the crime, everyone is entitled to have the basic human right to vote." - Former prisoner, John Hirst

Story in full

PRISONERS are to be given the vote after a European court yesterday ruled that the government's blanket ban on inmates taking part in elections was a violation of their human rights.

The Department for Constitutional Affairs said proposals would be introduced to allow at least some prisoners to vote in national and local elections.

But Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, made it clear he did not want to see inmates convicted of murder, rape and other serious crimes given access to the ballot box. He said it was possible that certain categories of prisoner convicted of lesser offences would be given the vote.

Lord Falconer said a review of the rules banning prisoners from voting in British elections would now be carried out.

The legal challenge was mounted by John Hirst while he was serving a life sentence in Rye Hill prison, Warwickshire, for manslaughter. After his application to vote from prison was turned down, Mr Hirst, 54, took his case to the High Court and lost.

Then a seven-judge chamber of the European Court of Human Rights backed him and awarded him 8,000 in costs and expenses. The government appealed to a 17-judge Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court, but yesterday it also backed Mr Hirst.

Now released and living in Hull, Mr Hirst said his fight had been about breaking the link between crime and the right to take part in the democratic process.

He said: "The human rights court has agreed with me that the government's position is wrong - it doesn't matter how heinous the crime, everyone is entitled to have the basic human right to vote."

The Grand Chamber ruled by a 12-5 majority that the 1983 Representation of the People Act breached Mr Hirst's human rights.

Lord Falconer insisted the ruling did not mean all 77,000 prisoners in the UK would be allowed to vote.

He said: "I can make it absolutely clear that in relation to convicted prisoners, the result of this is not that every convicted prisoner is in the future going to get the right to vote. We need to look and see whether there are any categories that should be given the right to vote."

Colin Moses, the general secretary of the Prison Officers' Association, said the ruling would make jails "political pressure points".

He added: "A lot of prisons are in marginal seats and 600 or 700 votes from prisoners could swing the result of an election one way or the other."

Juliet Lyon, a director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "It's time to stop pretending that people in prison don't exist."

But the Conservative Party attacked the ruling. Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general, said: "The courts have ruled that prisoners, many of them dangerous, cannot be allowed to take part in normal society for the duration of their sentence. Why should they have a say in how that society is run?"

A spokesman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs said:

"The court found that a blanket ban was unacceptable so it is not the case that all convicted prisoners will now get the right to vote. We are looking at different categories based on the gravity of their offence."