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The Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill 2012 [1] was a proposed Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom introduced to the House of Commons. The Bill deals with disenfranchisement of prisoners in the United Kingdom.
Following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, [2] the United Kingdom government was tasked with amending the Representation of the People Act 1983 which contains the clauses forbidding serving prisoners from being able to cast votes in any elections. Even before 1983, prisoners in the UK weren't allowed to vote, which had been decided with the Forfeiture Act 1870. [3]
On 10 December 2012, the Council of Europe advised that the United Kingdom could not continue with its 'blanket ban', observing that one of the available options in the draft bill would contravene the ruling against the UK. [4] [5]
Section 3 of the 1983 Act states that,
A convicted person during the time that he is detained in a penal institution in pursuance of his sentence or unlawfully at large when he would otherwise be so detained is legally incapable of voting at any parliamentary or local government election. [6]
In its ruling Hirst v United Kingdom (No 2) [7] the ECHR stated that "...the general...and indiscriminate disenfranchising of all serving prisoners....is incompatible with Article 3 of Protocol No 1", [8] and that "[a]ny departure from the principle of universal suffrage risks undermining the democratic validity of the legislature thus elected and the laws which it promulgates". [9]
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The Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill was drafted to give Members of Parliament three options on which to vote.
A Joint Committee would be formed to consider the Bill and further options.
Amending the legislation has caused controversy in the United Kingdom. Prime Minister David Cameron said the idea made him feel "physically ill". [10] Although Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General told a Select Committee that continuing the ban would keep the UK in breach of the Court's ruling [11] David Cameron told the Commons that "no one should be in any doubt" that the law would not be changed. [12]
In 2014, Conservative backbencher Christopher Chope introduced a private members bill to cement the ban on voting right in British law in defiance of the European Court's ruling. [13]
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)Disfranchisement, also disenfranchisement or voter disqualification, is the restriction of suffrage of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. Disfranchisement can also refer to the revocation of power or control of a particular individual, community or being to the natural amenity they have; that is to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, of some privilege or inherent immunity. Disfranchisement may be accomplished explicitly by law or implicitly through requirements applied in a discriminatory fashion, through intimidation, or by placing unreasonable requirements on voters for registration or voting. High barriers to entry to the political competition can disenfranchise political movements.
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve is a British barrister and former politician who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2008 to 2009 and Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Beaconsfield from 1997 to 2019 and was the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee from 2015 to 2019.
The Human Rights Act 1998 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received royal assent on 9 November 1998, and came into force on 2 October 2000. Its aim was to incorporate into UK law the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Act makes a remedy for breach of a Convention right available in UK courts, without the need to go to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.
The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, formally introduced into Parliament on 19 November 2001, two months after the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September. It received royal assent and came into force on 14 December 2001. Many of its measures are not specifically related to terrorism, and a Parliamentary committee was critical of the swift timetable for such a long bill including non-emergency measures.
Human rights in the United Kingdom concern the fundamental rights in law of every person in the United Kingdom. An integral part of the UK constitution, human rights derive from common law, from statutes such as Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Human Rights Act 1998, from membership of the Council of Europe, and from international law.
In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases a judge may impose a "whole life order", meaning that the offender is never considered for parole, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Whole life orders are usually imposed for aggravated murder, and can only be imposed where the offender was at least 21 years old at the time of the offence being committed.
This article concerns the policies, views and voting record of David Cameron, Foreign Secretary in the Sunak ministry and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Cameron describes himself as a "modern compassionate conservative" and has said that he is "fed up with the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster". He has stated that he is "certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite." Our Society, Your Life, a 2007 policy statement for the Conservative Party launched shortly after David Cameron became leader of the party, has been seen by some as a triangulation of Conservative ideology with that of Tony Blair's New Labour, linking into the idea of the Third Way and an attempted revival of one-nation conservatism. There have been claims that he described himself to journalists at a dinner during the leadership contest as the "Heir to Blair", and Cameron stated in 2005 that he did not intend to oppose the Labour government as a matter of course, and will offer his support in areas of agreement. He also wants to move the Conservatives focus away from purely fiscal matters, saying "It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB – general well-being". However, commentators have questioned the degree to which Cameron and his coalition have embodied this, instead locating them in the intellectual tradition of Thatcherism. However, Cameron has claimed to be a "liberal Conservative", and "not a deeply ideological person".
Civil liberties in the United Kingdom are part of UK constitutional law and have a long and formative history. This is usually considered to have begun with Magna Carta of 1215, a landmark document in British constitutional history. Development of civil liberties advanced in common law and statute law in the 17th and 18th centuries, notably with the Bill of Rights 1689. During the 19th century, working-class people struggled to win the right to vote and join trade unions. Parliament responded with new legislation beginning with the Reform Act 1832. Attitudes towards suffrage and liberties progressed further in the aftermath of the first and second world wars. Since then, the United Kingdom's relationship to civil liberties has been mediated through its membership of the European Convention on Human Rights. The United Kingdom, through Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, led the drafting of the Convention, which expresses a traditional civil libertarian theory. It became directly applicable in UK law with the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Hirst v United Kingdom (2005) ECHR 681 is a European Court of Human Rights case, where the court ruled that a blanket ban on British prisoners exercising the right to vote is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. The court did not state that all prisoners should be given voting rights. Rather, it held that if the franchise was to be removed, then the measure needed to be compatible with Article 3 of the First Protocol, thus putting the onus upon the UK to justify its departure from the principle of universal suffrage.
Dominic Rennie Raab is a British Conservative Party politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Esher and Walton since 2010. From 2019 to 2023, with a brief period out of office during the Truss premiership, Raab was deputy to prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak – as First Secretary of State until 2021 then as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom until 2023. Additionally he has served in the cabinet positions of Brexit Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor.
Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Following a referendum on 23 June 2016, Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020. The UK is the only sovereign country to have left the EU. The UK had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor, the European Communities (EC), since 1 January 1973. Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains relevant EU law as domestic law, which the UK can amend or repeal.
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