Voting for Prisoners (Barred from Voting)
On this page:
- Summary
- Background
- Our Argument
- The Prisoner Voting Consultation
- Current Situation
- Media
- Useful Documents
1. Summary Back to top
In 2004 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK’s blanket ban on prisoners’ voting is unlawful. Since then the government has failed to implement the ruling by dragging its heels through a protracted two-stage consultation process making it clear that it does not support the notion of prisoners being enfranchised. It is apparent that, as with any issue whereby prisoners are perceived to benefit from government intervention, the government wishes to avoid enacting the necessary legislation which would be attributable to its tenure. Rather it would prefer to kick the matter into the long grass and escape the negative media attention it fears would reduce its chances of re-election.
Prior to the ECHR ruling, UNLOCK joined with the Prison Reform Trust to launch the Barred from Voting Campaign, bringing together a coalition of senior cross-party politicians, church and faith leaders, former offenders, human rights charities and prison reformers to call for sentenced prisoners to be given the vote. Notable supporters of the campaign include former Conservative Home Secretary Lord Douglas Hurd, Liberal Democrat president Simon Hughes, Labour peer Baroness Kennedy QC, Conservative MP Peter Bottomley and Lord David Ramsbotham, Former Chief Inspector of Prisons.
Arguments supporting this position are many. As the ECHR noted, barring prisoners from voting may actually harm rehabilitation work, since participating in elections is likely to encourage them to become responsible, law-abiding citizens. As Bobby Cummines states, "It would make more sense to encourage them [prisoners] to engage with social issues through the ballot box rather than continue to reinforce their exclusion from society which often causes them to commit crime in the first place."
The government’s lack of response to the ECHR ruling has elicited much criticism not least from the Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights which deplored the undue delay and calling on the government to introduce an urgent remedial order as a solution in resolving the matter. In 2008 the Committee warned in its annual report that "there is a significant risk that the next general election will take place in a way that fails to comply with the convention". With an election due in 2010 this is a very real prospect.
2. Background Back to top
The disenfranchisement of prisoners in Great Britain dates back to the 19th century. Linked to the notion of ‘civic death,’ the Forfeiture Act of 1870 denied offenders their rights of citizenship. The current blanket electoral ban on sentenced prisoners voting is contained in the Representation of the People Act 1983 (amended 1985, 2000).
In 1998 the Prison Reform Trust (PRT) published Prisoners and the Democratic Process arguing that voting rights helped to develop a sense of social responsibility and should be extended to all UK prisoners. It also presented evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee report Electoral Law and Procedure.
In 1999 the Home Office Working Party on Electoral Procedures identified the disenfranchisement of convicted but unsentenced and remand prisoners, as caused by electoral criteria which prevented the acceptance of penal institutions as places of residence (White & Rees, 2006). They concluded that preventing remand prisoners from voting was accidental with no argument of principle and recommended they be recorded without a fixed address. The amendment of 2000 saw this implemented but no recommendations or changes were made with respect to the enfranchisement of convicted prisoners.
3. Our Argument Back to top
- The right to vote is an inalienable human right enshrined in Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
- The ban is not an effective deterrent and does not protect public safety. It is an unjust additional punishment imposed, but not articulated, by the courts.
- It contributes to the failure of imprisonment to rehabilitate six out of ten offenders. Giving prisoners the vote would encourage them to become responsible, law abiding citizens.
- If sentenced prisoners had the vote politicians would have to take more of an interest in prisons and the issues raised by prisoners.
- Denying sentenced prisoners the vote perpetuates social exclusion and undermines the Government's civic renewal and active citizenship agenda by legitimizing the civic death of thousands of people who are sentenced to prison.
- Minority ethnic groups are disproportionately affected. Due to their over-representation in the prison population, black men are eight times as likely to be barred from voting as their white counterparts.
- The UK is one of only eight European countries automatically to disenfranchise sentenced prisoners.
4. The Prisoner Voting Consultation Back to top
The Ministry of Justice Second-stage consultation was launched on the 9th April 2009. Although for the first time it acknowledges that some sentenced prisoners will eventually be allowed to vote, UNLOCK have two main concerns:
- The reforms look unlikely to be implemented until after the next general election
- The government have only given the option in the consultation to allow a small number of prisoners to vote, despite the responses from the first-stage consultation showing the majority of support was for full enfranchisement
UNLOCK's response to the Second-stage consultation can be downloaded by clicking here.
5. Current Situation Back to top
September 2010 update
UNLOCK write to Committee of Ministers, asking the Committee to take all actions possible to ensure that legislation is brought forward in giving prisoners the right to vote. Download the letter here. Also this month, Elkan Abrahamson wrote in insidetime to inform readers that he had heard from the European Court that there were processing 3 lead cases which they hope to have heard next year and are meanwhile logging all other applications and 'staying' them until the lead cases are heard. He also stated that he had received contact from over 2,000 prisoners, but as he is doing this work for free he cannot go on working on this case indefinitely and so has asked prisoners to stop writing to him on this for the time being.
July 2010 update
People who wish to claim compensation for the failure of the government to allow serving prisoners to vote in the recent Election can obtain a pro forma claim form from Elkan Abrahamson, Jackson & Canter LLP, 32 Princes Road, Liverpool, L8 1YH. A stamped addressed envelope is required. Elkam Abrahamson and Flo Krause (UNLOCK Patron) are pursuing claims for damages for all those prisoners who wish to seek at least £1,000 each in compensation.
June 2010 update
At its latest meeting on 3 June, the Committee of Ministers Deputies adopted an interim resolution which gives the UK Government three months to implement the European Court (Hirst No. 2) judgement that banning all serving prisoners from voting the Government is in breach of human rights.
The Committee expressed “profound regret” that “despite the repeated calls of the Committee, the UK general election was held on 6 May 2010 with the blanket ban... still in place”. It further “expressed confidence that the new UK government will adopt general measures to implement the judgement ahead of the elections scheduled for 2011 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”.
Lord Dubs once again raised the issue for debate in the House of Lords on 8 June, and was assured by the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally) that the Government would “look afresh” at the issue. He then defined “afresh” as meaning “"with a greater sense of urgency than Ministers in the last Government approached the issue".
Given that the last Government took seven years to come up with nothing, that won’t be too difficult to achieve!
After some extremely lively debate, L McNally then went to assure the House that the Government would present its conclusions to the Council in September and take into account the ECHR most recent decision on 8 April in the case of Frodl v Austria which found that a presumption that prisoners retained the right to vote with few exceptions and in such instances removal of the right should be determined by a judge. The Frodle case renders the last UK Government’s protracted consultation exercise redundant since all of the options presented as to which group of prisoners might be entitled to vote were based on sentence length.
It’s back to the drawing board for the new Government – and fast.
March 2010 update
In an attempt to overturn the ban on all serving prisoners from voting, and in accordance with the ECHR ruling that such a ban is unlawful, Lord Ramsbotham (UNLOCK’s President) has put down an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill [HL], which is now at Committee stage in the House of Lords. His amendment is to remove Section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 which is the section that makes prisoner voting unlawful.
This was debated in the House of Lords on the 7th April 2010, where Lord Ramsbotham had to withdraw the amendment.
December 2009 update
The European Council of Ministers has taken action against the UK Government after its continued failure to implement the European Court of Human Rights judgement which ruled that the existing blanket ban on prisoner voting is unlawful.
In an Interim Resolution adopted on 3rd December, the Council stated that unless measures were taken quickly, the next General Election, which must take place by June 2010, may fail to comply with the European Convention. The Government has failed to respond to enquiries from UNLOCK asking for both results of its Consultation which closed in September this year, and what plans it has made to act upon it.
Committee of Ministers Press Release
Interim Resolution
6. Media Back to top
7. Useful Documents Back to top
Campaign and Consultation documents:
European Court of Human Rights documents:
Joint Committee on Human Rights documents:
Committee of Ministers documents
Other documents:
Former prisoners Danny Afzal, Bobby Cummines & Charlie Ryder stand in front of Nelson Mandela's statue opposite Parliament. Enabling prisoners to vote was one of Mandela's first acts as South Africa's new leader.
A recent marketing campaign by The Economist picked up on the debate around Prisoner Voting as ones of the contentious issues that they have covered in their publication.
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