“There has been some discussion on the UK Human Rights Blog about the judgments in the Hirst v UK/Scoppula v Italy cases, the latest of which was given this week. Simply put, the judgments held (taken together) that the UK’s blanket ban on prisoner voting infringed a prisoner’s voting rights; to comply with the Convention, a ban on prisoner voting would have to involve an exercise of discretion. The growing legal discussion has been learned and has dissected the reasons expressed by the ECtHR. However, from the perspective of a non-specialist human rights lawyer, the discussion seems curiously inverted. It is suggested that the non-lawyer would naturally start an analysis of the competing views not by analysing the caselaw of the ECtHR and asking what room to manoeuvre the latest judgment gives the UK government, but by asking what the court had to say about the recent expression of the will of the people, expressed in the vote in Parliament, which supported the continuation of the ban. It is important for lawyers to address these more general issues for the public to maintain confidence in the system of European human rights law.”

Full story

UK Human Rights Blog, 25th May 2012

Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com