Prisoners: Voting

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

One reassuring thing is that I am not aware of any party represented in this House that is looking for us either to withdraw from the convention or to see it break up. My noble friend is right: we are looking to see whether we can put forward a proper and sensible programme of reform for the court. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor spelled out our agenda, as it were, in a speech in Turkey a few months ago, and we will be taking that agenda forward when we take up the chairmanship of the Council of Europe in November.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Does the Minister agree that while there may be a case for asking for an extension of time while awaiting the Grand Chamber judgment in the Scoppola case, which also involves prisoners’ rights, and a case for negotiating with the court on the broad margin of appreciation allowed in the Hirst case, there is no case whatever for defying the court, as a number of Members of the other place seem rather keen to do, particularly at a time when the UK will assume the chairmanship of the Council of Ministers in November? What sort of precedent would that give to defaulting members such as Turkey and Russia?

[Lord McNally]

The noble Lord makes the key point in all this. It looks rather macho to say that we are going to defy the court, but one of the real benefits of the convention over the past 60 years has been that it has levered up respect for human rights right across Europe and continues to do so. If I, any of my noble friends, or any member of the Opposition were to meet marginal observers of human rights and put pressure on them, our words would not carry much weight if they were able to say, “Well, when it got tough for you to accept the decisions, you did not accept them”.