Murderers lose Supreme Court battle for vote
Two convicted murderers serving life sentences on Wednesday lost their Supreme Court bid to win the right to vote while in jail. The court dismissed appeals brought by Peter Chester, who was convicted of raping and strangling his seven-year-old niece, and George McGeoch.
Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the unanimous decison as “a great victory for common sense”.
Convicted prisoners in Britain are barred from voting on the basis that they have forfeited the right by committing a crime. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2005 that a blanket ban on serving prisoners going to the polls was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The European court ruled it was up to individual countries to decide which inmates should be denied the right to vote from jail, but that a total ban was illegal. McGeoch, serving a life sentence in a Scottish jail for a 1998 murder, claims that under EU law he was allowed to vote in local and European elections.
But the challenge mounted by the convicts has met with stiff opposition from the government.
Cameron vowed that inmates will not be given voting rights while he is in power and has said that the idea of giving prisoners the vote makes him “sick”.
He told parliament last year: “No-one should be in any doubt: prisoners are not getting the vote under this government.”
The parliament is considering legislation to cover the issue.
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