European Convention on Human Rights

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, for obtaining this important debate. As with other noble Lords, I will concentrate on the issue of voting for prisoners, which has already been raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, and the noble Lords, Lord Prescott, Lord Thomas and Lord Goodhart. As the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, said, when the issue was raised in the other place on 10 February, the discussion appeared to be nothing about voting for prisoners but objections to Europe, which was not the point. When we look at the issue in the context of human rights, it deserves better than that and so do we if we think of ourselves as a civilised nation in our approach to the resettlement of offenders—as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has mentioned.

I must declare an interest, first as an advisory member and now a trustee of an organisation called the International Centre for Prison Studies. Its job is to go round the world advising international prison systems on what is described in its manual as a,

“human rights approach to prison management”.

The reason for this is that when people have looked at the way prisons are run, there is absolutely no doubt that the decency which accompanies a human rights approach is most likely to result in successful resettlement. To quote from this manual:

“The legitimacy of this handbook on good prison management comes from its solid grounding in these international human rights standards, which are recognised around the world …. [The] concept of human rights is not merely another subject to be added to the training curriculum. Rather, it suffuses all aspects of good prison management and is integral to it”.

That manual was launched in January 2002 by the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. I have personally used it in Libya and Turkey, and have been fascinated by its reception by Governments who saw—and still see—their prisons as a way to improve their reputation for human rights around the world.

I was Chief Inspector of Prisons in 1998 when the European convention was introduced into English law. At the time, a large number of people said that this introduction would be followed by an absolute torrent of litigation by prisoners who would claim that their human rights had been breached by the way that they were treated in prison. I asked a lawyer to run prison rules against the European convention and alert me to where there were any discrepancies. There were none. In other words, if prison rules were breached, the European convention was being breached. It is fascinating that, when one looks at the amount of litigation brought by prisoners since then, nothing has really been brought about the European Convention on Human Rights, with the exception of this alleged breach of Article 3 of the First Protocol, about prisoners voting.

Article 3 of the First Protocol merely says that,

“free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature”,

are guaranteed. It makes absolutely no mention, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said, of prisoners voting. When this lack was brought to my attention, I asked the Home Secretary why prisoners were being denied the vote. He replied that prisoners had lost the moral authority to vote. I did not know that moral authority came into voting and suggest that, if it is applied, there are several other people who would be denied the vote.

So began the litigation which has been the subject of quite a lot of today’s discussion. I do not intend to go through it, but it is now more than seven years since the European court ruled unanimously that we were in breach of the convention because we did not allow prisoners to vote. The solution has been in our hands ever since. I recommended to the Government in the first consultation document, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, published that we should adopt the same approach as Germany and France. At the time of sentence, and bearing in mind the crime committed, the judge should remove the right to vote during the period of that sentence. I seriously believe that that would have taken the whole of this issue out of the realms of where it has got to. Parliament would have made the decision, which is what Parliament wants to do. The decision would be related to the crime. When you look at the people in prisons, there are vast numbers in the sad category or the short-term category, not masses of rapists, arsonists and all the other people who are quoted in particular in the 10 February debate—which was, frankly, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, suggested, an exercise in getting overexcited.

That is the way to go. I hope that what happens now will put this seven-year delay behind us and that we will take this away from any suggestion that the European convention or the European Court of Human Rights is at fault. When we sign up to conventions, we agree to their conditions. We cannot pick and choose. Any Government who deliberately appear to be either breaking the law or picking and choosing send an appalling message to those people whom they imprison—the very people we are trying to resettle.