Injunctions
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts(12 years, 12 months ago)
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The Attorney-General
The question of what role the Press Complaints Commission may play is clearly another subject that the House may wish to consider. I am not sure that I entirely subscribe to the right hon. Gentleman’s very pessimistic view of the Press Complaints Commission. I have seen examples where, it seems to me, it has operated quite effectively. That is a further reason why that may be a sensible area for debate.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I welcome the review, but does the Attorney-General share with me the concern at the deeply sinister and Kafkaesque prospect, under the present super-injunction regime, that an unnamed journalist could be imprisoned in a secret court for having revealed the name of a hitherto anonymous personality who had a lot of money to bring that legal action? That is more like the actions of a state such as North Korea or Zimbabwe than the United Kingdom.
Voting by Prisoners
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is a little unnerving to find myself disagreeing with so many right hon. and hon. Members and with a substantial proportion of public opinion, but I firmly believe that we must rescind the ban on a prisoner’s right to vote. I have listened to the arguments on the law and the role of the European Court. It has been suggested that the Court is extending its brief and seeking to prevail over the will of this Parliament and stretch the ambit of the convention beyond the fundamental human rights that it was originally set up to address. I see this in a rather different context—namely, as an opportunity to maintain and extend our understanding of human rights over time. There has never been a time when much of the popular will has been directed towards driving up protections and rights for prisoners. That is why it is important that the Court and our belonging to the convention should exert outside pressure to challenge us to go further in the name of social progress.
It has been argued that our standards are already among the highest, and in some respects they are, although not in respect of a prisoner’s right to vote. In many other countries, that right is extended either wholesale or on a more generous basis than it is here in the UK. It is absolutely right that we should aspire to the very highest standards in the rights that we afford people. The philosophical importance of convention rights is that they extend protection to minorities, even the undesirable ones that we do not like very much. We unpick and undermine those protections at great risk.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that the House should be able to make a value judgment between a civic right and a human right? Human rights include the right to food, shelter and family life, whereas civic rights include the right to vote. There is a distinction between the two, and surely we can make a value judgment on behalf of our constituents and exercise our right to say that one is not the same as the other.