Voting by Prisoners

Debate between Ben Gummer and Robert Walter

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walter]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. What he describes would be a logical and proportionate way to proceed, but many prisoners had no fixed abode before they came into prison, so where would they then “reside” or have their vote registered?

Withdrawing from the convention would be counter-productive, if not dishonourable. I appreciate that the Hirst ruling has raised legitimate constitutional questions that go right to the heart of the Court’s credibility and I also recognise that the Court is not perfect and is struggling to cope with a massive backlog of cases. It is in need of serious reform.

[Ben Gummer]

May I ask my hon. Friend a question as he is an expert on these matters? Would resiling from the 1965 agreement, under which petitioning to the ECHR would be allowed, constitute a withdrawal from the convention, or could we do that and remain a signatory to it?

[Mr Walter]

I am not a lawyer and would defer to the Attorney-General for a legal answer. As was said earlier, “We are where we are”—I think we have to go from that particular point.

We need to put all this into perspective. Since the convention came into force, Russia has faced more than 1,000 adverse judgments; Turkey has had more than 2,000, 228 of which were in 2010 alone; Poland has had 761; Ukraine has had 709; and Romania has had just over 700. What if the UK defied the Court? Dissent is unacceptable, because we would be saying it was acceptable for countries that face thousands of charges, many on grave human rights abuses, to flout international law. That is clearly unacceptable.

How do we reconcile our opposition to the Court’s judgment?