UK Only Western European Country to Ban Prisoners Voting

The UK is the only country in western Europe that still enforces a blanket ban on prisoners voting in elections, a law which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has now ruled breaches inmates' human rights four separate times.

Sean Humber, the lawyer representing over half of the 1,015 prisoners who were fighting for their right to vote in the most recent case, attacked the government for "taking an almost perverse pleasure in ignoring successive court judgments".

However, Humber did concede that he was"pleased the court has confirmed that the UK government breached our client's human rights by having a blanket ban that prevented all convicted prisoners from voting in the May 2010 general election."

Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, says that MPs in Britain need to change their focus. "Politicians should feel sick about sky high reconviction rates, not about enabling prisoners to be good citizens."

"For 10 years the UK government has wasted public money blocking the original judgment," she said, referring to the first time the UK ignored the ECHR recommended the law be amended.

Lyons also highlighted the difference between Britain's position on the matter and the majority of the rest of Europe: "It's difficult to understand why [we uphold this law], when we are out of step with almost all of the Council of Europe countries, when prison governors, prison inspectors and bishops to prisons support voting."

Today's judgement reconfirms previous court rulings which have stated that the UK government

are in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to a free election - by not allowing inmates to vote.

In both 2004 and 2005 the ECHR ruled that this was unlawful, but although the Labour government ordered consultations on the law at the time, no legislative changes were made.

In 2010 when the Conservative party formed a coalition government following the general election, UK prime minister David Cameron told MPs: "No one should be under any doubt - prisoners are not getting the vote under this government."

In contrast to Britain, the Republic of Ireland lifted their ban in 2006 following what Fíona Ní Chinnéide from the Irish Penal Reform Trust called a "remarkable lack of opposition" in the Irish parliament.

Dr Cormac Behan, who had carried out extensive research on the franchisement of prisoners in Ireland, says opening up voting rights to prisoners sends a symbolic message of inclusion rather than exclusion. "If we are trying to promote prison as a method of rehabilitation then to send a signal which is about inclusion is important and voting is both symbolic and real in relation to this."

Today's decision by the ECHR follows a UK High Court ruling in December 2014 which declared that a ban on books being sent to prisoners was unlawful. The UK Justice Secretary Chris Grayling had introduced the policy in November 2013, but was ordered to change it following widespread condemnation protesters including children's novelist Philip Pullman and Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy.

The Ministry of Justice have not yet responded to Newsweek's request for a comment.