Should prisoners have the vote?
Anna Racoon says, at Jailhouse Lawyer:
Prisoners incontrovertibly have an interest in who precisely is making the legislation that governs their stay at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, and I see no merit in the argument that part of their punishment should be further removing them from engagement in civic society.
No legislation without representation may well be their motto. That prisoners might not be best disposed towards the government responsible for the laws which currently see them incarcerated may account for the strange reluctance of this ‘Equality for all’ Government to implement the ECtHR recommendations.
I’m putting up a poll in the sidebar about it. This blog doesn’t have a huge success rate with polls but we’ll give it a go.
Filed under: Politics & economics, Society & human issues
I should think that once they’ve been found guilty of a crime (eg. felony), their “right” to vote should be revoked. Or, will it be the nuts running the nuthouse…..should all of the politicians, themselves, be voting then?!
@HisGirlFriday
+1
Clearly criminals vote for the party softest on crime.
BTW, this theme is doing something strange in Mac Safari.
I’m in Safari now, Wolfie – looks OK to me. What was the issue?
HGF – it will be interesting to see what people say.
For what it is worth, my own view is that those that break the laws of society no longer have a right to the benefits of that society.
Simples
But then we have to take into account the criminal (in)justice system which teaches those that have committed a crime how to be institutionalised. This is rather counter productive and leads to a life of crime rather than rehabilitation.
I know that is rather a simple answer but it really needs several chapters to fully explain that thought.
The comment box slips behind the right-hand column and the text along with it.
@CherryPie
How do voting rights contribute to rehabilitation?
@Wolfie
They don’t. I should have stated I was commenting on the remark from WitteringfromWitney.
“Should prisoners have the vote?”
Of course they should. There is no valid argument against. If the European Court of Human Rights, the highest court in Europe, had ruled against giving prisoners the vote then that would have been the end of the matter unless Parliament decided otherwise. So, on a purely legal analysis the judgment has already been reached. It remains for the UK to implement it.
The UK government put forward its arguments against allowing prisoners the franchise to the Chamber, and lost in a unanimous decision of the Court. Then the UK apealled to the Grand Chamber and lost in a 12-5 majority.
The UK has tossed the coin and claimed heads they win and tails the prisoners lose.
We are left with an injustice depriving approximately 70,000 convicted prisoners of the vote. When the legal rights of others are violated and people put their heads in the sand, they cannot later complain when they find their own legal right being violated.
@Jailhouselawyer
“When the legal rights of others are violated…they cannot later complain when they find their own legal right being violated.”
Exactly the right argument as to why prisoners don’t deserve the right to vote – they have violated other’s peoples legal rights and therefore must sacrifice some of their rights in return.
As for the ECHR, it may have come to that judgement but that doesn’t have any bearing on the question asked. The ‘should’ is asking for people’s opinions on the issue and not the legal state of affairs.
Oh and one further point – if someone is in prison for electoral fraud do they deserve the right to vote?
A person who breaks the law has declared themselves outside the laws of society, so they should also have the rights and privileges of the same society suspended.
“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
-P.J. O’Rourke
The government makes a law that says that the Minister of X can declare that any citizen is a communist.
The law says that anyone so declared a communist cannot vote.
There is also a law that says that such people can be detained at the Minister’s pleasure.
Is that fascist?
I would say so.
Depriving prisoners of the vote is creeping fascism.
(Oh, and you can switch communist as fascist in the above, and still get the same result. It’s still creeping totalitarianism.)
Kyle: The Court stated it is only those convicted of electoral fraud etc who can legitimately be denied the vote.