| Title:
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DRAFT VOTING ELIGIBILITY (PRISONERS) BILL
REPORT, SESSION 2013-14, REPORT, TOGETHER WITH FORMAL MINUTES |
| By: |
Great Britain: Parliament: Joint Committee on the Draft Voting , The Stationery Office (Editor), Nick Gibb |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| List price:
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£14.50 |
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| ISBN 10: |
0108551652 |
| ISBN 13: |
9780108551659 |
| Publisher: |
TSO |
| Pub. date: |
18 December, 2013 |
| Series: |
House of Lords Papers 103 |
| Pages: |
84 |
| Synopsis: |
The Government published the draft Bill (Cm. 8499, ISBN 9780101849920) as a result of a decision of the European Court of Human Rights that the UK's complete prohibition on convicted prisoners voting was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Joint Committee on the Bill has reached the following conclusions on points of basic principle: in a democracy the vote is a right, not a privilege and should not be removed without good reason; the vote is a presumptive, not an absolute right; the vote is also a power; there is a legitimate expectation that those convicted of the most heinous crimes should be stripped of the power embodied in the right to vote; selecting the custody threshold as the unique indicator of the type of offence that is so serious as to justify loss of the vote is somewhat arbitrary; there are no convincing penal-policy arguments in favour of disenfranchisement; the enfranchisement of a few thousand prisoners is far outweighed by the importance of the rule of law and the desirability of remaining part of the Convention system.The Committee recommends that the Government introduce a Bill which should provide that all prisoners serving sentences of 12 months or less should be entitled to vote in all UK parliamentary, local and European elections; and moreover that prisoners should be entitled to apply, up to 6 months before their scheduled release date, to be registered to vote in the constituency into which they are due to be released. |
| Publication: |
UK |
| Imprint: |
TSO |
| Returns: |
Non-returnable |