Prisoner votes mean loss of sovereignty

If a pilot felt the need to boldly declare over the intercom every 10 minutes that the engine wasn’t on fire and that there was enough fuel, his passengers would begin to suspect something was amiss.

That too was surely the reaction among political onlookers when William Hague inserted into his European Union Bill a clause asserting that Parliament had full sovereignty over the United Kingdom. Surely Parliamentary ink need not be wasted writing something so self-evident, you would have been forgiven for thinking. The recent furore over the granting of votes to prisoners, much to Mr Hague’s chagrin I’m sure, suggests this sovereignty exists on paper only.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg ruled that denying prisoners the vote is a breach of their human rights and, unless Britain complies with this ruling, we are liable to pay £100 million in compensation claims that the ECHR will uphold.

The argument in favour of denying the vote to prisoners, in this country at least, is generally accepted and uncontroversial. No political party apart from the Liberal Democrats is in favour of granting prisoners the vote and 69 percent of people support the current ban. Indeed, until the interjection of the ECHR, the issue hadn’t been discussed in Parliament since 1870.

It is not so much the issue of prisoners voting that is really alarming. Rather, how this new enfranchisement came about and the implications it has for democracy in this country is. Despite Parliament voting overwhelmingly in favour of the status quo, it seems likely that at least some prisoners will be given the vote. Despite what Mr. Hague may claim, it seems the will of an unaccountable body of appointed judges from 47 countries trumps the will of our democratically elected Parliament. This is, however, a self-inflicted wound. Our democratically elected representatives freely signed this country up to the European Convention of Human Rights in 1950.

The signatories of that Convention had the noblest intentions: to enshrine the basic rights of every human being, in order to ensure the horrors inflicted during the Second World War were never repeated. It’s safe to say the fundamental and universal human rights those signatories had in mind were the right to liberty, a fair trial and the prohibition of torture, as opposed to the enfranchisement of prisoners.

Since it was signed, the concept of human rights has been steadily expanded by judges appointed to the court, to the extent the ECHR is encroaching beyond the remit granted to it in 1950. Human rights are best guaranteed by elected representatives in a free democracy and the cause of human rights is only damaged by the interference of unaccountable, foreign courts in the affairs of parliaments. If the European Court is compromising our representative’s decision-making on such matters, then a thorough reassessment of our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights ought to be undertaken.

It seems likely however, that there will be a compromise. In probability, only prisoners serving short sentences will be given the vote to demonstrate that MPs still have limited control. I hope the absurdity of granting the vote to soft criminals does not extend to hardened drug dealers or attempted murderers on the grounds of human rights.

This is a compromise not just on giving the vote to prisoners, but, more importantly, a compromise on the sovereignty of Parliament. As protesters across North Africa and the Middle East bravely risk their lives in the name of democracy, it is shameful that the Prime Minister of the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world shows such disregard for our sovereignty and cowardice in the face of European judicial tyranny.