Practical Ethics

Speaking in December last year, David Cameron reinforced the current government position that prisoners serving a custodial sentence in the UK should not be given the right to vote, stating that “if parliament decides that prisoners should not get the vote then I think they damn well shouldn’t.” The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that the UK’s blanket ban on prisoner voting is unlawful, contravening the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Cameron’s comments followed a warning from Thorbjørn Jagland, secretary-general of the Council of Europe, that if the UK, a founding signatory of the ECHR refused to enforce the judgment, it would weaken and deprive it of any meaning. Continue reading →