06 February 2019
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"On 6 December 2018, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe closed the supervision of the prisoners’ voting rights cases against the United Kingdom (UK) and adopted final resolution CM/ResDH(2018)467. Thirteen years after Hirst v United Kingdom (No.2) (2006) 42 EHRR 41 (Hirst) was made final, the protracted prisoner voting stalemate is over. Case closed. Or is it?
This post provides an overview of the background context to the prisoners’ voting rights clash and assesses the Government’s administrative amendments to prisoners’ voting rights. This post will contend that the amendments are disappointing and inadequate. At the domestic level, the amendments bypassed Parliament’s involvement and at the supranational level, the Committee of Ministers’ approval of the amendments undermines the effectiveness of rights protection. It will be argued that the amendments fail to satisfy the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on prisoner voting. The issue of prisoners’ voting rights therefore remains open in the UK."
See: UK-ECHR: Prisoners’ Voting Rights: Case Closed? (UK Constitutional Law Association, link)
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