So prisoners in British jails are finally to be given the right to vote in general elections. The general, law-abiding public has a right in turn to be as dumbfounded as it is outraged. The genesis of this decision lies in a ruling in 2004 by the European Court of Human Rights that Britain’s blanket ban on prisoners’ voting rights was discriminatory. For six years, government lawyers have tried to get out of complying with this ruling. The Tories are no less vehemently opposed than was Labour. Dominic Grieve, the Attorney-General, has previously said it would be ‘ludicrous’ to give prisoners the right to vote. Not a human right: Prisoners forfeited their right to a vote when they transgressed the laws of society It’s not hard to see why. Criminals are jailed because they have transgressed the laws of society. As a result, they forfeit the entitlements of that society until they have paid their dues. The very notion of prisoners’ ‘rights’ is offensive. Of course, society has a duty to look after their basic needs — adequate food, shelter, safety and so on — while they reside at Her Majesty’s pleasure. But voting is not a basic human right, the kind which overrides any particular circumstances. It is rather a civic entitlement resulting from the unwritten compact between a citizen and a free society. Criminals forfeit such entitlements because they have violated the fundamental understanding of that civic compact: that citizens must abide by the law of the land. That’s why laws prohibiting prisoners from voting are of ancient provenance, going back to the 14th century when the concept of ‘civic death’ was established. After the 1867 Reform Act gave working men the right to vote, the Forfeiture Act established the practice that those who were guilty of felonies could not vote. Yet the European Court of Human Rights has redefined voting as a universal right which prisoners must therefore enjoy. At a stroke, the court has ridden roughshod over the compact of citizenship and has stamped all over Britain’s ancient concept of justice. That’s not surprising, since human rights law expressly refuses to recognise bonds of nationality and citizenship, insisting that the rights it bestows are universal — even though they are actually handed down by judges governed by their own particular views and prejudices. So once again British ministers are not being allowed to govern in accordance with the wishes of the British public who elected them. Is this not replete with the most bitter irony? For this ruling gives prisoners the right to vote. But what’s the point of any of us having the right to vote, when the government we thus elect is overruled by a bunch of judges in a foreign court? the crucial point about this decision, the one that really sticks in the craw, is that we all know all this. Ministers know all this. They know that human rights law rides a coach and horses through British democracy. We know they know this because David Cameron told us he would do something about it. Indeed, he repeatedly gave a solemn promise when he was in opposition that he would respond to public outrage by repealing Britain’s own Human Rights Act, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into English law and created a veritable domestic industry of perverse legal rulings. Yet no such initiative has been forthcoming. Instead, we are now told Mr Cameron was ‘exasperated’ and ‘furious’ at having to agree to votes for prisoners, but the threat of costly compensation claims from prisoners and potential legal action from the European Union had forced his hand. Well, is he a man or a mouse? He is the Prime Minister of this country, for heaven’s sake. Yet here he is fruitlessly wringing his hands as a bunch of foreign judges override his mandate. Our problems with human rights law stem from the fact that, unlike virtually every other country that signed the European Convention but secured exemptions from bits they believed would cause them problems, Britain signed up to it lock, stock and barrel. That foolish error was then given rocket fuel by our zealot judges, who saw in human rights law a way of transferring power to themselves from politicians they despised, and who used it to turn morality, justice and plain common sense upside down. Repealing Britain’s Human Rights Act, which incorporated the Convention into English law and thus made it so much easier to obtain perverse human rights rulings, would certainly improve matters. Is he a man or a mouse? David Cameron appears to be fruitlessly wringing his hands as a bunch of foreign judges override his mandate, according to Melanie Phillips But the Tories’ proposal in opposition to replace it by a so-called British ‘Bill of Rights’ was clearly unworkable. The difference between this and the current law was unclear. And it would not have solved the problem that Britain would still be bound by rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. Even before the last election, it was obvious the Tories didn’t really want to address this. They didn’t want to try to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s adherence to the Convention because they would have had to threaten to abandon it altogether if they didn’t get what they wanted. And they didn’t want to walk away from the Convention for two reasons. First, they believed that since members of the Council of Europe are required to be signatories to the Convention, leaving the Convention would mean leaving the Council of Europe. And that, they thought, would mean leaving the EU, too, since the EU makes it a condition of entry to belong to the Council. This, however, is an assumption which has never been tested, and may well be wrong. But the second reason was that the Tories didn’t want to be painted as being ‘against human rights’. So what it boiled down to, once again, was spin — the need to go with the flow of Left-wing shibboleths in order to get a soft ride with the BBC. For all these reasons, reforming human rights law was just too much trouble. So it was no surprise that the Tories’ promises were quietly shoved into the long grass. And it was also no surprise that the vexed and related issue of prisoners’ rights was handed to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, whose party supports votes for prisoners. It’s hard not to conclude, in short, that the Tories never had any serious intention of carrying out their promise to reform human rights law. They were merely saying what was necessary to buy off those troublesome Tory voters who were spitting tacks over the crazy culture of ‘human rights’. What makes this even more painful is that it is not the case that European judges or bureaucrats are mounting some kind of hostile takeover of our country and preventing us from passing our own laws. We ourselves signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights. We ourselves signed up to the European Union in all its various manifestations. We have done this to ourselves. Or rather, our politicians have done it to us. Voting rights for prisoners are indeed ludicrous. But not as absurd as voting for politicians who supinely give away their power to govern — thus doubly betraying all those who fought and died for the right to vote, which has now been so outrageously devalued.Cameron fumes and postures over the European Court of Human Rights. So why won't he stand up to it over votes for prisoners?
Last updated at 1:34 PM on 3rd November 2010
More from Melanie Phillips...
27/09/10
What politicians do, they can undo. But, instead, they fume and posture and make empty promises. Explore more:
Wednesday 3 November 2010
They did exactly the same thing over the EU, too. These two issues share the same neuralgic disorder: they remove the right of the British people to be governed in accordance with their own democratic wishes and cultural traditions.
Posts
