Votes for Prisoners

For the uninitiated, this is a tale that has gone on for 5 years and involved the Government revealing utter contempt for the law whenever it conflicts with electoral advantage. As a method of reducing their threadbare legitimacy amongst prisoners, the votes fiasco is central. How can we accept lessons on being law-abiding from those who evade the law with such deliberation? Five years ago, John Hirst (who blogs as jailhouselawyer) delivered a parting shot as he left prison. He challenged the blanket ban on prisoners voting. As demonstrated by my recent piece at the Guardian Online, this issue raises some people's hackles. Nonetheless, it should be noted that this ban is a relatively recent development (within the last 130 years) and it has never been debated in Parliament. It is an issue worthy of substantive and widespread debate. Jailhouselawyer won in the European Court. The Court held that the blanket ban was unlawful and the Government should look at allowing at least some prisoners the vote. The Government appealed but the Grand Chamber upheld the original decision. A small but vital part of the judgement related to lifers. If you read my previous post attempting to explain life sentences, you will appreciate that they are split into two parts. Only the initial part is the punishment period, the rest is on grounds of 'public safety’, a form of protective detention. The Court held that none of the reasons that the Government gave for denying prisoners the vote applied to lifers who were past their punitive period (the ‘tariff’). We should be amongst the prisoners who have that right. The Government response was to promise a period of public consultation. It delayed doing this for three years or so. It then said it would conduct further consultations, which are only now coming to an end. During this time, Minister after Minister has denounced the Court and its judgement, and maintained the stance that no prisoner should gain the right to vote. It has shown a level of contempt for the law that even prisoners find breathtaking and we are not easily impressed. The latest salvo in this campaign has recently been fired by the Minister of Justice himself, who declared that the Government wouldn't alter the law before the next election. At the European level, Jailhouselawyer continues to badger away. The Council of Ministers has deplored the Government’s delaying tactics and insists they properly address the Court judgement by December. We will wait and see how that plays out. On the domestic level, though, the issue is about to get very heated. A lifer, who is post tariff, is in the High Court to challenge the Government’s mendacity and insist that, as he is no longer held in prison for punishment, then he should have his right to vote before the next election. This carries a personal disappointment for me, in that I had hoped to be the one making the challenge. I was beaten to the draw. My strategy was as much political as legal. As a post-tariff lifer, and my crime not being one of the most repulsive, I intended to insert myself into the public eye and challenge public conceptions about prisoners. My crime is serious enough to raise the relevant political and moral issues around the vote, but not so repellent as to have the public throw up their hands in total horror. Further, it was my aim that in gaining post-tariff lifers the vote then the Government would have no political barrier to giving it to all prisoners. After all, if you can give something to murderers and rapists, the Daily Mail can hardly blow a fuse if this is extended to thieves and burglars. I thought this was a clever strategy on my part, even if I do say so myself. Given the reaction to my blog, I think that I was right in my calculations. But alas, I'm not going to be the one in court. All I can do is stand on the sidelines and make the arguments. The man who is taking the challenge is a more, shall we say "difficult", proposition in PR terms. Legally, we share the same status but politically he is a more contentious figure. His crime poses the problem - the rape and murder of an 8 year old girl. The votes case being at least as much politics as law, I could see that he may not be best placed to have the debate. And I asked him to step aside and allow me through; a request he politely declined. Whilst he raises the same legal issues, I fear that his past will make the political battle more difficult than it should be solely due to public reaction. His offence will overshadow the issues. But who said politics was easy? We must work with the circumstances as they are. I intend to try to make a virtue out of these difficulties, arguing that this lifer’s offences raise no new issues but are so awful that they sharpen the issues that need to be debated. Giving the vote - giving any rights - to people is easy if they are popular. It is the people that are despised that need them the most. We will have to wait for the outcome of his legal challenge to see what the future holds. All I know so far is that the Government has behaved shamefully and risks the startling prospect of the next General Election being rendered illegal. And remember that they do this not out of some grand political or moral principle, but only because they don't want to carry the burden of being the party that gave convicts the vote.