A Chronology on the Prisoner Voting Saga (2004-2015) #echr

It being over ten years now since Strasbourg first ruled that the UK blanket ban on convicted prisoner voting in general elections (enshrined in s 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983), breached Art 3 of Prot 1, I thought a chronology on the whole saga could be useful (to this extent this post builds on a previous one, here).

A chronology could also be useful as, later this week in Moscow, a one day conference is taking place to discuss the prisoner voting issue, a matter which the UK and Russia have something in common in that, like the UK, Russia also bans convicted prisoners from voting.

A fast-tracked Bill of Rights? #echr

According to today’s The Independent on Sunday the Conservatives plan to fast-track a British (UK?) Bill of Rights into domestic law by next summer (see, too, the perhaps rather optimistic, but well-balanced editorial here). It would seem most likely that the politics surrounding the passing of such important legislation will intervene to frustrate this proposed timeframe, but we shall have to wait to see.

The Independent’s report makes the following points (in blue, below), which I believe will be of interest to readers of this blog, and I also offer a few comments on the issues at stake. [Picture Credit – see Below]

Execution of judgments and the use of infringement proceedings #echr

The excellent ECHRBlog has an item on it concerning the recent call, by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, for the use of infringement proceedings in the context of the non-enforcement of Strasbourg judgments, a call which had a measure of support from the outgoing President of the Court ,Judge Spielmann. The ECHRBlog post- well worth reading – begins with these words:

This [last] week, both the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the President of the European Court of Human Rights have called upon the Committee of Ministers to start making use of the ‘infringement’ procedure of Article 46 ECHR, introduced as part of the reforms of Protocol 14. The procedure offers the possibility to refer to the Court an issue when implementation of a judgment is hindered by either questions of interpretation (para. 3) or a refusal to abide by a judgment (para. 4). Thus far this procedure has not yet been used