Thursday 9 April 2009

EU orders voting rights for prisoners

The British government is drawing up proposals on giving some prisoners the right to vote. We initially covered this story back in November.

Currently, anyone serving a prison sentence or out on licence loses their right to vote. Part of the price of committing a crime is losing your right to vote, it has been this way since the 19th century. But of course, the European Empire doesn't approve of depriving its citizens of their "rights" so they've issued a directive instructing member states to give prisoners the vote.

The British government, in a rare show of defiance, are looking at a compromise of giving the vote only to prisoners with sentences of 12 months or less. It's a futile show of defiance because the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that prisoners must be allowed to vote and the British government has allowed EU law to have primacy over our own. The compromise will be challenged and our imperial overlords will rule that all prisoners must have the vote.

1 comments:

wonkotsane said...

LAH, the ECHR ruled on an EU directive, they didn't make their judgement off their own backs.

The UK does not need to be in the EU. We only need a seat at the table when they're making 75% of our laws. Once we leave we need only the same input as Norway, Switzerland and Greenland do and that is what is relevant to a free trade agreement.