Voting by Prisoners

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

My hon. Friend takes a very absolutist stance, although I have heard him utter such a view before. That is not Government policy, however.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Is not the fundamental issue that the European convention on human rights applies to everyone, including those who are in prison, and that when people are convicted they do not lose their convention rights? They have to suffer a penalty following conviction, but losing their right to vote is outwith the terms of the convention.

[The Attorney-General]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable point. Indeed, in some countries, the removal of the right to vote effectively forms part of the sentencing exercise. However, that has not been part of our national tradition in this country. I will be interested to hear hon. Members’ reasoning in the debate. I assume that the underlying principle behind the ban—given that many people are convicted and not sent to prison—was that a person who was sent to prison had done something so antisocial towards the civil order that it was justified to remove their right to vote. Speaking personally, I have never thought that there was anything unreasonable about that approach, although I appreciate that some hold other views, including non-governmental organisations such as the Prison Reform Trust, which has argued powerfully in favour of giving prisoners the right to vote.

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[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point extremely well, and I think that it has been taken by many Members.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am very puzzled by my friend’s approach. If we as a country are signed up to the European convention on human rights, which we frequently use—all of us as Members of Parliament use it in representing our constituents—and if the Court makes a judgment on the question of prisoners’ voting rights within that convention, we are bound by that judgment, by treaty and by law. Why on earth are we debating this issue unless the long-term agenda—and I suspect that it is the agenda of many Members—is complete withdrawal from the convention? Surely that is the real agenda of many people.

[Chris Bryant]

It is certainly not my agenda, and I hope that I shall be able to please my hon. Friend with some of the things that I am going to say. I would add, however, that politicians engage in pick and mix sometimes—indeed, virtually every day of their lives.

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[Mr Hollobone]

The legal industry has reached a new low in touting for business among convicted felons whereby lawyers will try to get fees for themselves by prosecuting Her Majesty’s Government. That is appalling, and it makes the whole issue even more sickening.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

What does the hon. Gentleman think are the implications of challenging a European Court of Human Rights decision for all the other human rights that we hold dear and wish to see enacted and enforced in all member countries of the Council of Europe?

[Mr Hollobone]

The hon. Gentleman takes a perfectly reasonable position. I totally disagree with him, but he is a principled man and he makes an important point. The bottom line for me is that there would be less shame in leaving the European convention on human rights than in giving prisoners the vote. He may disagree with that, but it is the line that I would take. What people do in other countries is up to them.

I would like to stay in the convention, but we are dealing with a court that has gone wrong. It is clearly not functioning properly. It has a backlog of tens of thousands of unresolved cases. Many of its so-called judges have no legal training at all; they are probably less qualified than me to make judgments on these things. How has it come about that we, in a sovereign Parliament, have let these decisions be taken by a kangaroo court in Strasbourg, the judgments of which do not enjoy the respect of our constituents?

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

It is a bit strong to describe the European Court of Human Rights as a kangaroo court. That does not do any credit to the debate in this House or to the argument put by the Member who so described it. As a country, we signed up to the European convention on human rights because we wanted to ensure that basic standards of human rights were available to everyone across Europe. We did so because of the horrors of the second world war and the post-war period. It does no credit to anyone in this House to describe the Court in that way, as it is a derivative of a period in the world’s history when we tried to develop a commonality of human rights conditions around the world.

Those who say that our House of Commons is a completely sovereign body and can do whatever it wishes are frankly wrong. Every time a country signs up to a treaty in any sphere of influence or activity, it removes some of its own sovereignty. That is the nature of international law and of signing up to treaties. Let us get real. We are part of the Council of Europe and the European convention on human rights, and that has made a big difference to the lives of an awful lot of people across Europe and in this country. We should approach this issue with a degree of rationality and sense about what is meant by human rights.

I remind the House that, in South Africa, prisoners have had the right to vote since the end of apartheid. It is worth thinking about the words of its constitutional court, because it is a country that has been through the most unbelievable turmoil and some of the worst abuses of human rights experienced in the world:

“The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts.”

That is an important element. I have no more truck with people who commit violent crime or other crime than any Member. However, is prisoners having the right to vote not part of a rehabilitative process? Does it not encourage them to reflect on what they have done? Is it not a fundamental right that is enshrined in the European convention on human rights? Perhaps we should consider it as a useful step forward for this country.

I have received various lobbying letters on this issue, as I am sure have other Members. I will quote from two sources that I think are valuable. The first is an article by Frances Crook, who has spent her whole life at the Howard League for Penal Reform. She has done a great deal of very good work, as has that organisation, in encouraging a better prison system and better rehabilitation of prisoners. Her article from The Guardian online states:

“Voting is one way that people exercise their citizenship and prisoners too are citizens. We infantilise prisoners, treating grown up men inside as if they were small children who are not allowed to decide what they wear, what they do or make any contribution to the running of their lives.”

She makes, I think, a very strong case for treating prisoners in a more sophisticated way in order to improve them and their lives.

The other quotation is from Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe human rights commissioner. When he came to speak in this building, many MPs came to listen to him and applauded what he said, the attitude he took to human rights and his determination to ensure that the European convention applied throughout Europe. He has said:

“Our forefathers accepted the principle that not only male persons, nobles, and those who owned property or paid taxes should have the right to vote, but everyone—irrespective of their status in society. We may now feel that some of these right-holders do not deserve this possibility, but to exclude them is to undermine a crucial dimension of the very concept of democracy—and human rights.”

I urge the House to think carefully about the matter and not to walk away from an important step forward in international law and human rights. We would do so at our peril.

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[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

This afternoon, I feared cutting a rather lonely figure when standing up to argue that we should allow more prisoners to vote. I welcome, therefore, the support of the hon. Members for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Belfast East (Naomi Long), the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), who opened the batting for those supporting voting rights for prisoners, and the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).

I am arguing in favour of allowing more prisoners to vote, and the purpose of the intervention that I made on the spokesman for the official Opposition, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), was to highlight the fact that a number of prisoners already do have the right to vote. People who are presenting this as a black-and-white issue, or a new departure, where, for the first time, prisoners are to be given the right to vote, are misleading the public, because we know that a group of prisoners already have the right to vote.

The case that I am making is based on two simple principles. The first is that when the European Court of Human Rights finds that UK law contravenes the European convention on human rights—in other words, that UK law is unlawful—the UK Government should address that illegality. Once we start picking and choosing the laws that we believe should apply and those that we can disregard—the pick-and-mix approach, as the Attorney-General put it—where does it end? The Americans know where it ends: in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Even if the ruling makes some feel uncomfortable, what about the other rulings that the Court has made? A couple of Members have referred to those, including in the case of S and Marper, in relation to DNA, and the case of Z and others, in relation to child neglect. I would also mention the case of Al-Saadoon and Mufdhi v. the UK Government in March 2010, when our Government were criticised for failing to obtain assurances from the Iraqi authorities that those men would not face the death penalty there.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is right about where we would end up with a pick-and-mix solution. I am sure that he is also aware that the case of the Chagos islanders is coming before the ECHR this summer. A decision will come out, and whatever it is, we hope that the Government accept it. If we go down the other road, everything would be open for debate every time there is a Court decision.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He has put on record what I know to be his long-standing interest in the Chagos islands, and I hope that a positive outcome will be secured there.

The second reason why I am speaking in favour of more prisoners being given the right to vote is that it is the appropriate course of action. Prisoners have committed a crime. Their punishment is to lose their liberty. That is fair and just. What is then gained by seeking to inflict civil death on them? In what way does that benefit the victim? Does it increase the chances of rehabilitation? What is the logic behind the ban? We do not remove prisoners’ access to health care, nor do we stop them practising their religion, so why should we impose a blanket ban on prisoners’ right to vote? Surely we have moved on from the Victorian notion of civil death.

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[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Notwithstanding the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the motion on the Order Paper in my name and that of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House has been carefully crafted in light of the judgments delivered by the Grand Chamber in the Hirst case. For that reason, and given the limit on Back-Bench contributions, I shall confine my remarks to demonstrating why the motion is correct and why it is important that it receives support from hon. Members on both sides of the House.

The previous Government’s decision to refer the Hirst matter to the Grand Chamber is something that we have to live with because of the rule of law. We have to respect the judgment that the Court handed down, whether we agree with it or not, but it is important to bear in mind that the decision in Hirst was far from unanimous. A powerful dissent was delivered by the president of the Court, in which he was joined by four other judges. I add that Judge Costa, who is now the president of the Court, also delivered a dissenting opinion. Those dissenting opinions correctly recognised the importance of the Court not interfering or being seen to interfere in domestic political issues.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am listening intently to the hon. and learned Gentleman. Does he recognise that those opinions dissented from the majority opinion of the Court? If we are to support the whole concept of the European convention on human rights and the Court, we have to accept its judgment.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am grateful for that intervention, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to listen to where I am going rather than to what he has heard so far.

The minority stressed that

“it is essential to bear in mind that the Court is not a legislator and should be careful not to assume legislative functions.”

I make this point, in answer to the hon. Gentleman, because although I accept, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has made clear, that the Government are bound by the judgment in the Hirst case as between themselves and Mr Hirst, in the sense that it is res judicata between them, they are not bound in relation to future cases brought by other litigants. There is every prospect, given the debate that we are having today, that the judgment in Hirst would not be followed by the Grand Chamber in future should it come to consider the matter again. To be clear, if, as I trust will happen, there is a clear demonstration in the House today of the will of the people, through their democratically elected representatives, to maintain the status quo regarding the removal of voting rights from those who are subject to custodial sentences, I fail to see how that could not subsequently be respected by the courts of this country and by the Strasbourg Court should the matter have to be considered again.

As even the majority in Hirst recognised, there is a substantial margin of appreciation in the context of article 3 of the convention, and the fact remains that there is no consensus across Europe as to whether those serving custodial sentences should have their right to vote removed as a consequence of having put themselves outside the law. Indeed, it was notable in the judgment of the majority in the Grand Chamber that significant reliance had to be placed on decisions from Canada and South Africa. The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) quoted from the South African case. It is true that Canada and South Africa are both common law countries, but they have significant civil law traditions stemming from French law and Roman-Dutch law respectively.

The margin of appreciation in the context that is being discussed in the House means, or certainly ought to mean, that if the House passes the motion, as I hope it will, and if it decides that it does not believe, in the name of the people of the United Kingdom, that section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 entails any breach of the human rights of the citizens of the United Kingdom, that, to my mind, must be an end of the matter. It will have to be recognised in the courts of this country. It will, I hope, be recognised by the Court in Strasbourg.