MP's back ban on prisoners votes

[D_Hailsham]

It's about time we stood up to the European Parliament

Sorry to disappoint everybody but the European Court of Human Rights has absolutely nothing to do with the European Union or the European Parliament.

It was established following the signing of a treaty, in 1950, which created the European Convention on Human Rights - long before the creation of the European Economic Community (forerunner of the European Union).

Although the UK signed the Treaty, UK citizens were not able to take their case to the Court until in the 1960's. To do so, however was an extremely time-consuming and expensive process and it was eventually admitted that the British Government was only paying lip-service to the treaty and deliberately putting obstacles in the way.

The 1998 Human Rights Act changed all that, so many decisions which previously required an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights can now be made by UK courts and it is now much easier to appeal to the European Court after all UK routes (Appeal Court and Supreme Court) have been exhausted. In some cases the Supreme Court will decline to pass a judgement but will instead refer a case directly to the European Court.

 

[imamartian]

human rights.... ?... surely it has to be the rights of the many over the rights of the one? it has to be...

plus prisoners locked up for more than a governments life shouldn't be able to vote in it's life.... so a lifer never votes, but a 6monther can!!

 

[libby lou lou]

Brussels did not originally say all prisoners must be allowed a vote. Within the previous government they said that UK cannot deny all prisoners the vote, i.e. apply a blanket ban on voting.
Not quite the same thing.
A discussion in parliament resulting in an exclusion policy for 'serious' offenders would have been perfectly acceptable. The 'seriousness' of the crime would have been determined by parliament.
The previous government kicked it into the long grass, hoping it would go away. It didn't, because we did nothing, it came back with a ruling that we must allow prisoners the vote.


I read that as well today.

 

[joinerjohn]

The thing that galls me about Human Rights, is it seems to be the law breakers rights that are being put first and foremost. Hardly anyone seems to care about the rights, that victims supposedly had (that were then infringed by the perpetrators).
I've heard it said that when someone gets arrested for any offence, they suddenly have more rights to fall back on, that police officers almost have to tread on eggshells to make sure these rights are not infringed.

 

[JohnD]

The court said a blanket ban on all prisoners wasn't reasonable. That could have been dealt with by giving people the vote in the 12 months before they got out, to ease them back into thinking like responsible adults; or letting them keep a postal vote if they were in for 12 months or less. It would have saved a lot of trouble and cost. Some prisoners won't bother to vote, just like some non-prisoners. So what? Lots of MPs don't bother to vote in the House even though we pay them to do it.

The old buffers I've heard on the radio tend to say two things (1) criminals are hideous subhumans who don't deserve any rights (2) voting isn't important so why should it matter?

If (2) was true, why bother excluding them? They can have a postal vote and a pre-paid envelope like anyone else

As for (1), with a bit of luck there will be a steady stream of MPs into prison, so perhaps they will become more charitable. Some of the people in for short spells are relatively harmless, even though they may be social inadequates.

 

[D_Hailsham]

Brussels did not originally say all prisoners must be allowed a vote.

Nothing to do with Brussels! Read my post: //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1899944#1899944

 

[RedHerring2]

Brussels did not originally say all prisoners must be allowed a vote.

Nothing to do with Brussels! Read my post: //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1899944#1899944[/QUOTE]

Sorry, that might have been me misleading. I followed on from a post from that daft so & so, MM and quoted him, copied it across without thinking to correct it:

But the politicians just illegally voted out a law, passed by Brussles, prisoners are allowed to vote, we said no.

Brussels did not originally say all prisoners must be allowed a vote. Within the previous government they said that UK cannot deny all prisoners the vote, i.e. apply a blanket ban on voting.
Not quite the same thing.
A discussion in parliament resulting in an exclusion policy for 'serious' offenders would have been perfectly acceptable. The 'seriousness' of the crime would have been determined by parliament.
The previous government kicked it into the long grass, hoping it would go away. It didn't, because we did nothing, it came back with a ruling that we must allow prisoners the vote.

I've just noticed he even mis-spelt Brussels.
Apologies again. It's what you get for quoting and responding to idiots.

 

[D_Hailsham]

Apologies again. It's what you get for quoting and responding to idiots.

No need to apologise.

I'm not so sure about idiots. I think it more to do with the way people read topics. Some contributors seem to read just the first post and reply to that, without bothering to read the following replies. Others go straight to the last post and don't bother to read what has been said previously.

I have found that, particularly on the first visit to a topic, I need to read the complete conversation before making a contribution.