I shall start my Friday Rive Gauche post with a sensible comment and let it go downhill from there….
While it may make David Cameron ‘sick to the stomach’ and irritate many in this country who feel that those who have committed criminal offences (some extremely serious and denying the human right to life, freedom from assault and rape to the victims) should be denied the right to vote - do we, as a country wish to inflict an eye for an eye, behaving in like manner as those who commit serious crimes, and continue to refuse to comply with the judgment of the ECHR, a court which applies The European Convention, which not only did we sign up to, but which we were instrumental in drafting after World War II?
Thomas Hammarberg, Europe’s commissioner for human rights, points out in The Guardian today:
Prisoner voting: Convicts are human beings, with human rights
Most other member states of the Council of Europe already allow prisoners to vote – and this has caused no real problems
I believe that we should comply with the judgment for three reasons: Firstly, we are a civilised nation. Secondly, we signed up to The European Convention and thirdly, if we are to build our country going forward and deal with other nations not by waging war, but by working with them, a strong record on human rights and fairness can only help that ideal.
Well…. if we are going to go downhill…we may as well do it in style. RollonFriday.com reports today in their News section…always worth a read on a Friday…
Debevoise London office in vomiting party shame
RollonFriday reports: A leaving party for a Debevoise & Plimpton lawyer has not gone well, with one member of staff chucking up and rumours of another being knocked unconscious.
The party was held at the Pacific Oriental bar on Threadneedle Street. An insider said that the attendees were completely smashed, and behaved sufficiently badly for the bar staff to ask them repeatedly to calm down. And one member of the Debevoise team was so wrecked that he threw up on the entrance steps.
I am grateful to my old friends Mick & Nick Nosh of The Nosh Brothers (anarchic celeb chefs, hooligans and gourmandisers – I was even a shareholder in the now defunct Nosh Brothers restaurant, late of Notting Hill. Those were the days!) for the inspiration for the caption below…… I have ‘nicked’ their wonderful introduction to a chapter in one of their books.)
I say we obey rules made by those in elected positions and not rules imposed by anyone else…
Prisoners are indeed Human Beings, who through choice have willingly broken the law and are being punished by society.
Denying the incarcerated a vote is hardly an eye for an eye – it simply states that if you choose to ignore a civilised societies rules, you will be excluded from choosing who makes those rules, whilst the debt of your crime is paid back.
The ECHR has become a beacon for ne’er do wells who laugh at justice, civility and society at large. Until we leave it, those who commit no crimes will face harsher punishments than any cons…
TheSkipLicker – your argument is one which many would agree with. The European Convention has thrown up some unfortunate results – but it is an important beacon of rights for the many, as indeed is our Human Rights Act.
I ask the question which Thomas Bingham, a former Lord Chief Justice of great distinction and humanity, asked…. which of the human rights in the Convention and the Human Rights Act would you like to lose?
I wouldn’t want to lose any of them…. is giving prisoners a right to vote, some vague hope of returning to society and contributing, such a bad thing?
Many prisoners re-offend… but many do not. I’d rather have a rule of law which encourages return to society than one which excludes.
On this, we shall have to agree to disagree. That, however, is not a problem… we can’t always agree with each other… diversity of opinion does not preclude friendship or agreement on other issues.
Thomas Bingham was a great man and his death was, and is, a great loss to us all. We need people like him to shine a light as we move into a new dark age preciptated by the UK’s rapid and drastic economic decline. History should remind us that human rights were jettisoned completely in Germany because of the economic crisis that befell it post World War 1 and which was compounded by the great crash of 1929.
The argument that convicted criminals have deprived others of their human rights, such as the right to life, etc, is a spurious one. Human Rights refer to the relationship between the State and its citizens. Individual citizens do not have obligations under the ECHR or HRA – only the State does. I hope I am not being pedantic in pointing this out.
If we deny convicted prisoners the vote then why can’t we deny other “undeserving” groups the same? I am sure many of our citizenry would like to deprive Gypsies of the vote. While we are at it, we could take the vote from unemployed people on the grounds that they don’t pay tax and are in any case a burden to Society.
It’s a slippery slope when we start selecting who among us is worthy of the vote.
The harm to Society from allowing prisoners to vote is neglible (they would never be able to materially influence the outcome of an election). The potential benefits to the prisoners as individuals in terms of their rehabilitation and reducing their alienation is significant. On these grounds alone it makes sense to allow convicted prisoners to vote. In short, the sum of human happiness is increased by enfranchisement.
On the point of the photgraph of the three drunken girls it would be very discourteous if they brought up the white wine BEFORE the fish course. That would be outrageous!
Stephen – I have to agree with your point that criminals depriving others of human rights is spurious… but it is the main plank upon which others build their responses….
It would be an outrage to bring up the white wine before the fish course.