Two murderers, including one who has served 35 years for raping and strangling his seven-year-old niece in 1977, do not have the right to vote, the United Kingdom Supreme Court in London has unanimously ruled.
Peter Chester and George McGeoch had argued that their human rights were being infringed because they were not entitled to vote under UK law, which bans all prisoners from voting. The issue of prisoner voting rights is controversial in the UK following the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that the UK ban is an "indiscriminate restriction" on an important right.
The Strasbourg-based court said it was up to individual Council of Europe countries to decide which prisoners should or should not continue to enjoy the right the vote while in jail, but that a total ban was illegal.
Welcoming the court ruling, British prime minister David Cameron, who had insisted he would give no prisoner voting rights, said the British attorney general had made "a compelling and forceful argument".
“It is a victory for common sense. My views on this are well known. I do not believe that prisoners should have the vote and I believe that it is a matter for this House of Commons to decide whether they should have the vote,” he said.
The UK's chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, told a House of Commons committee that London would set "a very bad example" if it ignored the ECHR ruling.
“I think the judgment has been made and what would set a bad example would be if we said to prisoners: ‘We don’t like that judgment, therefore we aren’t going to do it,’” he told MPs.
