UK: up to 100 prisoners on short sentences to be given right to vote

Change in rules will apply to offenders out on temporary release licence and aims to end 12-year dispute with Strasbourg court.

Fewer than 100 prisoners will get the right to vote under changes to prison service guidance that it is hoped will end a 12-year dispute threatening Britain’s membership of the European court of human rights.

David Lidington, the justice secretary, confirmed to MPs on Thursday that the government intends to change prison rules to allow “up to 100 offenders” on short sentences to vote while they are out of prison on a temporary release licence.

The changes will not mean that any convicted prisoner behind bars will be given the vote and judges will in future have to make clear in their sentencing, by spelling it out on the warrant of committal to prison, that the offender will lose the right to vote.

The justice secretary hopes the change will be enough to convince a forthcoming ministers’ meeting of the Council of Europe, which oversees the human rights court, to draw a line under the dispute over the 2005 Hirst ruling, which outlawed Britain’s blanket ban on prisoner voting. The issue, more than any other, has soured relations between Strasbourg and London.

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