BRITISH PRIME minister David Cameron has been put under pressure by House of Commons MPs to refuse to implement a European Court of Human Rights ruling that prisoners should have the vote.
Faced with a call to oppose the Strasbourg court’s decision led by Labour’s former justice secretary Jack Straw and Conservative MP Derek Davis, 234 MPs supported the motion, with just 22 votes against.
However, the Commons vote is not binding on the British government and it is likely to be ignored because the government would be faced with compensation claims if it refuses to heed the ruling that could run into hundreds of millions, legal sources say.
Declaring that “democratically elected lawmakers” should have the final say on whether prisoners can vote, Mr Davis declared: “The concept is simple and straightforward: if you break the law, you cannot make the law.”
The motion, which is highly unusual in that it was put forward by senior Labour and Conservative figures together, said the law should remained unchanged leaving only those prisoners held for “contempt, default or remand” entitled to vote.
Hinting that murderers, rapists and other serious offenders will continue to be excluded, secretary of state for justice Kenneth Clarke earlier this week said Britain would “do the minimum necessary to comply”. The judgment by the European Court of Human Rights – which is not part of the European Union – was made in October 2005, partly because the House of Commons had never debated the voting ban, introduced in 1870.
During a bad-tempered debate, Britain’s attorney general Dominic Grieve warned MPs: “It is worth bearing in mind that the government would be in rather serious breach of the principles of the rule of law and behaving, in fact, tyrannically.
“The principles on which United Kingdom governments have always operated are that if there are international obligations which confer a power on the court and the court orders compensation, we will honour those international obligations.”
Saying that the Commons debate could influence the European court’s future thinking, Mr Grieve said the United Kingdom has suggested to Strasbourg that the vote should be offered to prisoners serving less than four years – but the court could overrule that.
In his speech, Mr Straw said the problem had occurred because the Strasbourg court has widened its role “not only beyond anything anticipated in the founding treaties, but also not anticipated by the subsequent active consent of all the state parties, including the UK”.
Earlier, Mr Cameron said he understood and agreed with the MPs’ frustrations: “I just think that if you are sent to prison and you have committed a crime then you give up the right to be able to vote.
“I don’t see why we should have to change that. But I’m the prime minister, we’re in a situation where the courts are telling us we are going to be fined unless we change this.
“I find it thoroughly unsatisfactory. In my view, prisoners should not get the vote and that’s that. But we are going to have to sort this out one way or the other.”
