EU: More than 3,000 Irish prisoners could soon be able to vote in elections and referendums following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights yesterday.
In a landmark judgement, the court in Strasbourg found that the British government had violated a prisoner's rights by refusing him the ability to vote in an election.
The ruling in the case of John Hirst, a British prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter, is likely to set a legal precedent in the 46 countries that are signatories to the European Convention on Human rights. But it will not automatically force the Irish Government to change its practice of refusing the vote to prisoners unless an Irish prisoner takes a case in the Irish courts.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said yesterday it was considering the implications of the judgment and was talking to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General about the matter.
In its written judgement yesterday on the Hirst case, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that any departure from the principle of universal suffrage risked undermining the democratic validity of the legislature elected and its laws.
The court, on a majority ruling of 12 judges to five judges, said there was no question that prisoners forfeit their convention rights merely because of their status as detainees following conviction. It awarded €23,200 in costs and expenses to Hirst.
Ireland is among 13 signatories to the convention on human rights that currently prevents prisoners from voting in elections that will now have to study the judgement.
Unlike in Britain, where prisoners are not allowed under legislation to vote, prisoners in the Republic are not offered the administrative ability to vote. For example, no postal ballot is offered to prisoners and they cannot leave jail to vote.
The judgement by the European Court of Human Rights diverges from a previous ruling by the Supreme Court in the Republic, which found against a prisoner's right to vote in elections in July 2001. In a unanimous judgement, the five-judge court found that while prisoners were detained in accordance with law, some of their constitutional rights, including the right to exercise the franchise, were necessarily suspended.
Rick Lines, executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, said yesterday the Government needed to move quickly to provide prisoners with their legal right to vote. He said this should not take long as there was no existing constitutional bar against prisoners voting in the Republic.
Britain's lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, said the British government would re-examine its voting ban, which affects prisoners in Northern Ireland, but said it would not mean all convicted prisoners would win the right to vote.
"I cannot envisage, for example, convicted murderers being allowed to vote whilst they are in prison," he told the BBC.
"What [the European Court] is saying is in England, you've got a blanket prevention on any convicted prisoner voting."