Voting by Prisoners

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I start my comments in light of the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament, as set out in Hood Phillips’s “Constitutional and Administrative Law”. As paragraph 3.13 clearly states:

“The legislative supremacy of Parliament means that Parliament (The Queen, Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled) can pass law on any topic affecting any persons, and that there are no fundamental laws which Parliament cannot amend or repeal.”

Secondly, all our main legal authorities—from Dicey to Coke and Blackstone—assert that Parliament has the right to make or unmake any law whatsoever. Thirdly, no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having the right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.

In that light, if the House were to vote to confirm the current legislative provision that prisoners should not have the right to vote, that must surely be respected. Once a document is recognised as an Act of Parliament, no English court can refuse to obey it or question its validity. That is our common law, as established in the case of Manuel v. Attorney-General of 1983. The courts of our land must therefore respect the wishes of Parliament.

Schedule 3 to the Representation of the People Act 1983, as amended by the Representation of the People Act 1985, makes it quite clear that someone convicted and sentenced to imprisonment loses the capacity to vote.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that no one is being forced to forfeit their vote? Criminals choose to forfeit their votes when they decide to break the law. All that people need do in order to retain their votes is comply with the law.

[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend has highlighted the fundamental point that people have rights and responsibilities.

Successive Governments have made it plain that when people are convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, they lose the moral authority to vote. In 2003, Baroness Scotland of Asthal clearly stated that those who were convicted and imprisoned would lose that moral authority. The earlier legislation was right then as this legislation is now, and we should respect that.

Parliament’s supremacy has been challenged by the European Court of Human Rights. That cannot be right. It cannot be right for judges from developing judiciaries in eastern European countries to challenge the supremacy of our Parliament and our judiciary.

It is ethically and morally wrong to allow prisoners the right to vote. The concept that those who commit a crime must pay the price with their liberty and the withdrawal of certain rights must be correct.