These are hard times for the government and there is no respite. Today, parliament will
debate a prisoner’s right to vote, in accordance with the wishes of the resented European Court of Human Rights. The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour writes what many suspect: on the back of a free vote, the House will deny prisoners the right to vote in all cases
and outlaw compensation claims.
Such a result would seem a set-back for the government, which was thought to favour a limited
franchise on prisoner voting. If it became law, then the government would apparently be at odds with the ECHR – precipitating an ignominious procession of grasping lags, searching for
compensation at Strasbourg.
That may yet happen, but there are plenty of reasons to hope that it won’t:
1). The ECHR’s original judgement was not absolute.
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