Prisoners vote

BRITAIN MUST TELL EUROPE NO! OVER PRISONERS’ VOTES

Wednesday April 13 2011 by Alison Little..Daily Express.

SENIOR MPs last night urged the Government to defy European judges who have insisted again that Britain must give prisoners the vote.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) dismissed the UK’s final attempt to appeal against its ruling that our 141-year-old blanket ban on votes for convicted inmates is unlawful.
A five-judge panel has given Britain six months to draw up legislation to change the system.

Furious MPs, who voted by 10 to one in the Commons in February against a Government proposal to give the vote to prisoners serving up to four years, said ministers should put Britain first and ignore the Strasbourg court.

Conservative Philip Davies said: “The court is sticking two fingers up to the British public and the UK Parliament and as far as I’m concerned the best response is for the British Parliament and the British public to stick two fingers up at the court.
“The Government should say we’re not going to be told, especially by a bunch of unelected judges in a foreign country, who we should and shouldn’t allow to vote in our general elections.”

Last week Britain’s second most senior judge gave the Government clearance to ignore the ruling.
Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger said that if Parliament chose not to implement a court decision, it would be “an end to the matter’’.
He said such an action would put Britain in breach of its European treaty obligations but that was a matter for politicians, not judges, and “as a matter of domestic law there would be nothing objectionable in such a course”.
Read full article at: www.express.co.uk/

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