The forthcoming general election will be in breach of human rights unless the UK Government gives prisoners the vote, Europe’s human rights watchdog warned last night.
The declaration from the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers comes six years after judges ruled that the UK’s total ban on votes for prisoners is illegal. But the ban is still in place and pressure has been mounting for months for it to be repealed in line with the Human Rights Court judgment.
In a decision published in Strasbourg, the Committee of Ministers voiced “serious concern” that the ruling has still not been applied in the UK in the run-up to a general election.
It said the growing number of people affected by the voting ban could mean more human rights cases against the government.
The committee, made up of the foreign ministers of the 47 Council of Europe countries, meets to ensure governments comply with human rights rulings and says it will consider the issue of prisoners voting again in June – probably after the general election. Meanwhile, it said, the government should at least bring in stop-gap measures to fall into line with its human rights obligations.
Yesterday’s warning is not the first. Last December the same committee declared that “the substantial delay in implementing the judgment has given rise to a significant risk that the next UK general election, which must take place by June 2010, will be performed in a way that fails to comply with the (Human Rights) Convention”.
The declaration follows a committee meeting last week which looked again at the lack of action and considered a submission from the Prison Reform Trust, which accused officialdom of using delaying tactics.
Other campaigning groups, including Liberty and Unlock, also submitted demands for more pressure to force change, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission last month backed a case brought by Robert Greens, a prisoner at HM Prison Peterhead, after he was denied registration on the electoral register.
Prison Reform Trust director Juliet Lyon said: “Today’s decision is profoundly embarrassing for the government and places on it a clear and urgent obligation to overturn the blanket ban on sentenced prisoners voting.”
Bob Cummines, the chief executive of Unlock, said: “Giving prisoners the vote is a question of moral conscience, not political conscience.”
People held in prison on remand in the UK can vote.