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CONSEIL
DE L’EUROPE
COUNCIL
OF EUROPE
COUR EUROPÉENNE DES DROITS DE L’HOMME
EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
GRAND CHAMBER
CASE OF HIRST v. THE UNITED KINGDOM (No. 2)
(Application no. 74025/01)
JUDGMENT
STRASBOURG
6 October 2005
- The application was allocated to the Fourth Section of the Court (Rule 52 § 1 of the Rules of Court). On 8 July 2003 it was declared partly admissible by a Chamber of that Section, composed of Mr M. Pellonpää, President, Sir Nicolas Bratza, Mrs V. Strážnická, Mr R. Maruste, Mr S. Pavlovschi, Mr L. Garlicki, Mr J. Borrego Borrego, judges, and Mr M. O’Boyle, Section Registrar_._
- A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 16 December 2003 (Rule 59 § 3). In its judgment of 30 March 2004 (“the Chamber judgment”), the Chamber held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 and that no separate issues arose under Articles 14 and 10 of the Convention. It also held that the finding of a violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction for the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicant.
- On 23 June 2004 the Government requested that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber (Article 43 of the Convention).
- On 10 November 2004 a panel of the Grand Chamber decided to accept the request for a referral (Rule 73).
- The composition of the Grand Chamber was determined according to the provisions of Article 27 §§ 2 and 3 of the Convention and Rule 24.
- The applicant and the Government each filed a memorial. Observations were also received from the AIRE Centre and the Government of Latvia, which had been given leave by the President to intervene in the written procedure (Article 36 § 2 of the Convention and Rule 44 § 2). The parties replied to those comments at the hearing mentioned below (Rule 44 § 5).
- A hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 27 April 2005 (Rule 59 § 3).
There appeared before the Court:
(a) for the Government Ms E. WILLMOTT, Agent , Mr R. SINGH QC, Counsel , Ms M. HODGSON, Mr M. RAWLINGS, Mr B. DAW, Advisers ;
(b) for the applicant Ms F. KRAUSE, Counsel , Mr E. ABRAHAMSON, Solicitor.
The Court heard addresses by Mr Singh and Ms Krause.
THE FACTS
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE
- The applicant was born in 1950.
- On 11 February 1980 the applicant pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. His guilty plea was accepted on the basis of medical evidence that he was a man with a severe personality disorder to such a degree that he was amoral. He was sentenced to a term of discretionary life imprisonment.
- The applicant’s tariff (that part of the sentence relating to retribution and deterrence) expired on 25 June 1994. His continued detention was based on considerations of risk and dangerousness, the Parole Board considering that he continued to present a risk of serious harm to the public.
- The applicant, who is barred by section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 from voting in parliamentary or local elections, issued proceedings in the High Court under section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998, seeking a declaration that this provision was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
- The applicant’s application was heard by the Divisional Court on 21 and 22 March 2001, together with an application for judicial review by two other prisoners, Mr Pearson and Mr Feal-Martinez, who had applied for registration as electors and been refused by the Registration Officer and who also sought a declaration of incompatibility.
- In the Divisional Court judgment dated 4 April 2001, Lord Justice Kennedy noted that section 3 had a long history and cited the Secretary of State’s reasons, given in the proceedings, for maintaining the current policy:
“By committing offences which by themselves or taken with any aggravating circumstances including the offender’s character and previous criminal record require a custodial sentence, such prisoners have forfeited the right to have a say in the way the country is governed for that period. There is more than one element to punishment than forcible detention. Removal from society means removal from the privileges of society, amongst which is the right to vote for one’s representative.” Examining the state of practice in other jurisdictions, he observed that in Europe only eight countries, including the United Kingdom, did not give convicted prisoners a vote, while twenty did not disenfranchise prisoners and eight imposed a more restricted disenfranchisement. Reference was made to the United States Supreme Court which had rejected a challenge to the Californian Constitution’s disenfranchisement of convicted prisoners (see Richardson v. Ramirez [1974] 418 United States: Supreme Court Reports 24). Some considerable attention was given to Canadian precedents, which were relied on by both parties, in particular that of the Canadian Supreme Court which, in Sauvé v. Canada (no. 1) ([1992] 2 Supreme Court
example, Parliament were to have said that all those sentenced to life imprisonment lose the franchise for life the apparent anomaly of their position would disappear. ...
If section 3(1) of the 1983 Act can meet the challenge of Article 3 [of the First Protocol] then Article 14 has nothing to offer, any more than Article 10.”
- The applicant’s claims were accordingly dismissed as were those of the other prisoners.
- On 2 May 2001 an application for permission to appeal was filed on behalf of Mr Pearson and Mr Feal-Martinez, together with a forty-three- page skeleton argument. On 15 May 2001 Lord Justice Buxton considered the application on the papers and refused permission on the ground that the appeal had no real prospect of success.
- On 19 May 2001 the applicant filed an application for permission to appeal. On 7 June 2001, his application was considered on the papers by Lord Justice Simon Brown who refused permission for the same reasons as Lord Justice Buxton in relation to the earlier applications. The applicant’s renewed application, together with the renewed applications of Mr Pearson and Mr Feal-Martinez, were refused on 18 June 2001, after oral argument, by Lord Justice Simon Brown.
- On 25 May 2004 the applicant was released from prison on licence.
II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE
- Section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (“the 1983 Act”) provides:
“(1) A convicted person during the time that he is detained in a penal institution in pursuance of his sentence ... is legally incapable of voting at any parliamentary or local election.”
- This section re-enacted without debate the provisions of section 4 of the Representation of the People Act 1969, the substance of which dated back to the Forfeiture Act 1870 of the previous century, which in turn reflected earlier rules of law relating to the forfeiture of certain rights by a convicted “felon” (the so-called “civic death” of the times of King Edward III).
- The disqualification does not apply to persons imprisoned for contempt of court (section 3(2)(a) or to those imprisoned only for default in, for example, paying a fine (section 3(2)(c)).
- During the passage through Parliament of the Representation of the People Act 2000 (“the 2000 Act”), which allowed remand prisoners and unconvicted mental patients to vote, Mr Howarth MP, speaking for the government, maintained the view that “it should be part of a convicted prisoner’s punishment that he loses rights and one of them is the right to vote”. The Act was accompanied by a statement of compatibility under section 19 of the Human Rights Act 1998, namely, indicating that, in
introducing the measure in Parliament, the Secretary of State considered its provisions to be compatible with the Convention.
- Section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998 provides: “(1) Subsection (2) applies in any proceedings in which a court determines whether a provision of primary legislation is compatible with a Convention right.
(2) If the court is satisfied that the provision is incompatible with a Convention right, it may make a declaration of that incompatibility.
...”
III. RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL MATERIALS
A. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
- The relevant provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provide:
Article 25
“Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in Article 2 [race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status] and without unreasonable restrictions:
(a) to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives;
(b) to vote ...”
Article 10
- All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.
...
- The penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation. ...”
- In General Comment no. 25(57) adopted by the Human Rights Committee under Article 40 § 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 12 July 1996, the Committee stated, inter alia , concerning the right guaranteed under Article 25:
D. Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters
- This document adopted by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission) at its 51st Plenary Session (5-6 July 2002) and submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 6 November 2002 includes the Commission’s guidelines as to the circumstances in which there may be a deprivation of the right to vote or to be elected:
“d. ...
i. provision may be made for depriving individuals of their right to vote and to be elected, but only subject to the following cumulative conditions:
ii. it must be provided for by law;
iii. the proportionality principle must be observed; conditions for depriving individuals of the right to stand for election may be less strict than for disenfranchising them;
iv. the deprivation must be based on mental incapacity or a criminal conviction for a serious offence;
v. furthermore, the withdrawal of political rights or finding of mental incapacity may only be imposed by express decision of a court of law.”
E. Law and practice in Contracting States
- According to the Government’s survey based on information obtained from its diplomatic representation, eighteen countries allowed prisoners to vote without restriction (Albania, Azerbaijan, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Germany, Iceland, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine), in thirteen countries all prisoners were barred from voting or unable to vote (Armenia, Belgium (^1) , Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Ireland, Russia, Serbia,
Slovakia^2 , Turkey and the United Kingdom), while in twelve countries prisoners’ right to vote could be limited in some other way (Austria^3 , Bosnia
Where the period of disqualification may in fact extend beyond the end of the prison term.
There is no bar but no arrangements are made to enable prisoners to vote.
The right to vote is removed from prisoners sentenced to terms exceeding one year and if they committed the crime with intent.
and Herzegovina^1 , France^2 , Greece^3 , Italy^4 , Luxembourg^5 , Malta^6 , Norway^7 , Poland^8 , Romania and Spain^9 ).
- Other material before the Court indicates that in Romania prisoners may be debarred from voting if the principal sentence exceeds two years, while in Latvia prisoners serving a sentence in penitentiaries are not entitled to vote; nor are prisoners in Liechtenstein.
F. Relevant case-law from other States
1. Canada
- In 1992 the Canadian Supreme Court unanimously struck down a legislative provision barring all prisoners from voting (see Sauvé v. Canada (no. 1) , cited above). Amendments were introduced limiting the ban to prisoners serving a sentence of two years or more. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the provision. However, following the decision of the Divisional Court in the present case, the Supreme Court on 31 October 2002 in Sauvé v. the Attorney General of Canada (no. 2) held by five votes to four that section 51(e) of the Canada Elections Act 1985, which denied the right to vote to every person imprisoned in a correctional institution serving a sentence of two years or more, was unconstitutional as it infringed Articles 1 and 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which provides:
“1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
A restriction on voting applies to prisoners accused of serious violations of international law or indicted before the international tribunal.
Prisoners may vote if the right is given by the court.
Restrictions apply to prisoners sentenced to terms of over ten years, while life imprisonment attracts a permanent deprivation of the right to vote. For terms of one to ten years, courts may also restrict the right to vote for one to five years where a prisoner’s conduct shows moral perversity.
Serious offenders and bankrupts sentenced to terms of five years or more automatically lose the right to vote, while minor offenders debarred from holding public office lose this right at the discretion of the judge.
Unless the sentencing court removes civil rights as part of sentencing.
Prisoners convicted of a serious crime lose the right to vote.
The right to vote may be revoked by a court, although this is very rare and possibly restricted to treason and national security cases.
Prisoners sentenced to terms of three years or more where the crime is blameworthy (very serious) may lose the right to vote.
Unless, as occurs only rarely, the sentencing judge expressly removes the right to vote.
disenfranchisement was a civil disability arising from the criminal conviction. It was also proportionate, as the measure was rationally connected to the objectives and carefully tailored to apply to perpetrators of serious crimes. The disenfranchisement of serious criminal offenders served to deliver a message to both the community and the offenders themselves that serious criminal activity would not be tolerated by the community. Society, on this view, could choose to curtail temporarily the availability of the vote to serious criminals to insist that civic responsibility and respect for the rule of law, as goals worthy of pursuit, were prerequisites to democratic participation. The minority referred to the need to respect the limits imposed by Parliament and to be sensitive to the fact that there may be many possible reasonable and rational balances.
2. South Africa
- On 1 April 1999, in August and Another v. Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99: 1999 (3) SA 1), the Constitutional Court of South Africa considered the application of prisoners for a declaration and orders that the Electoral Commission take measures enabling them and other prisoners to register and vote while in prison. It noted that, under the South African Constitution, the right of every adult citizen to vote in elections for legislative bodies was set out in unqualified terms and it underlined the importance of the right:
“The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts.”
- The Constitutional Court found that the right to vote by its very nature imposed positive obligations upon the legislature and the executive and that the Electoral Act must be interpreted in a way that gave effect to constitutional declarations, guarantees and responsibilities. It noted that many democratic societies imposed voting disabilities on some categories of prisoners. Although there were no comparable provisions in the Constitution, it recognised that limitations might be imposed upon the exercise of fundamental rights, provided they were, inter alia , reasonable and justifiable. The question whether legislation barring prisoners would be justified under the Constitution was not raised in the proceedings and it emphasised that the judgment was not to be read as preventing Parliament from disenfranchising certain categories of prisoners. In the absence of such legislation, prisoners had the constitutional right to vote and neither the Electoral Commission nor the Constitutional Court had the power to disenfranchise them. It concluded that the Commission was under the obligation to make reasonable arrangements for prisoners to vote.
THE LAW
I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 3 OF PROTOCOL No. 1
- The applicant complained that he had been disenfranchised. He relied on Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 which provides:
“The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.”
A. The Chamber judgment
- The Chamber found that the exclusion from voting imposed on convicted prisoners in detention was disproportionate. It had regard to the fact that it stripped a large group of people of the vote; that it applied automatically irrespective of the length of the sentence or the gravity of the offence; and that the results were arbitrary and anomalous, depending on the timing of elections. It further noted that, in so far as the disqualification from voting was to be seen as part of a prisoner’s punishment, there was no logical justification for the disqualification to continue in the case of the present applicant, who had completed that part of his sentence relating to punishment and deterrence. It concluded at paragraph 51:
“The Court accepts that this is an area in which a wide margin of appreciation should be granted to the national legislature in determining whether restrictions on prisoners’ right to vote can still be justified in modern times and if so how a fair balance is to be struck. In particular, it should be for the legislature to decide whether any restriction on the right to vote should be tailored to particular offences, or offences of a particular gravity or whether, for instance, the sentencing court should be left with an overriding discretion to deprive a convicted person of his right to vote. The Court would observe that there is no evidence that the legislature in the United Kingdom has ever sought to weigh the competing interests or to assess the proportionality of the ban as it affects convicted prisoners. It cannot accept however that an absolute bar on voting by any serving prisoner in any circumstances falls within an acceptable margin of appreciation. The applicant in the present case lost his right to vote as the result of the imposition of an automatic and blanket restriction on convicted prisoners’ franchise and may therefore claim to be a victim of the measure. The Court cannot speculate as to whether the applicant would still have been deprived of the vote even if a more limited restriction on the right of prisoners to vote had been imposed, which was such as to comply with the requirements of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1.”
In addition, the applicant submitted that, as he was a post-tariff prisoner, the punishment element of his sentence had expired and he was held on grounds of risk, in which case there could no longer be any punishment-based justification. He pointed to the recently introduced sentence of “intermittent” custody, whereby a person was able to vote during periods of release in the community while being unable to vote while in prison, as undermining the alleged aims of preventing other convicted prisoners from voting.
- He further referred to a trend in Canada, South Africa and various European States to enfranchise prisoners, claiming that nineteen countries operated no ban while eight had only a partial or specific ban. He concluded that there was no convincing reason, beyond punishment, to remove the vote from convicted prisoners and that this additional sanction was not in keeping with the idea that the punishment of imprisonment was the deprivation of liberty and that the prisoner did not thereby forfeit any other of his fundamental rights save in so far as this was necessitated by, for example, considerations of security. In his view, the ban was simply concerned with moral judgment and it was unacceptable, as tantamount to the elected choosing the electorate, for the right to vote to be made subject to moral judgments imposed by the persons who had been elected. 2. The Government
- The Government submitted that under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 the right to vote was not absolute and that a wide margin of appreciation was to be allowed to Contracting States in determining the conditions under which the right to vote was exercised. They argued that the Chamber judgment failed to give due weight to this consideration. In their view, it wrongly thought that the law on voting by prisoners was the product of passive adherence to a historic tradition. They asserted that the policy had been adhered to over many years with the explicit approval of Parliament, most recently in the Representation of the People Act 2000, which was accompanied by a statement of compatibility under the Human Rights Act. The Chamber also failed to give due regard to the extensive variation between Contracting States on the issue of voting by convicted prisoners, ranging from no prohibition to bans extending beyond the term of the sentence. In some thirteen countries prisoners were unable to vote. A variety of approaches were also taken by democratic States outside Europe. The Chamber’s judgment was inconsistent with the settled approach of the Convention organs and there was no prior hint of any problem with the kind of restriction adopted by the United Kingdom.
- Furthermore, the matter had been considered fully by the national courts applying the principles of the Convention under the Human Rights Act 1998, yet the Chamber paid little attention to this fact while concentrating on the views of a court in another country (see Sauvé (no. 2) ,
cited in paragraphs 35-37 above). As regards the Canadian precedent, they pointed out that Sauvé (no. 2) was decided by a narrow majority of five votes to four, concerned a law which was different in text and structure and was interpreted by domestic courts to which the doctrine of the margin of appreciation did not apply and that there was a strong dissent which was more in accord with the Convention organs’ case-law. The South African case ( August and Another , cited in paragraphs 38-39 above) was not relevant as it concerned practical obstacles to voting, not a statutory prohibition.
- The Government also considered that the Chamber had erred in effectively assessing the compatibility of national law in abstracto , overlooking that on the facts of this case, if the United Kingdom were to reform the law and only ban those who had committed the most serious offences, the applicant, convicted of an offence of homicide and sentenced to life imprisonment, would still have been barred. Thus, the finding of a violation was a surprising result, and offensive to many people. The Chamber had furthermore misstated the number of prisoners disenfranchised, including those who were on remand and not affected.
- The Government argued that the disqualification in this case pursued the intertwined legitimate aims of preventing crime and punishing offenders and enhancing civic responsibility and respect for the rule of law by depriving those who had breached the basic rules of society of the right to have a say in the way such rules were made for the duration of their sentence. Convicted prisoners had breached the social contract and so could be regarded as (temporarily) forfeiting the right to take part in the government of the country. The Council of Europe recommendation concerning the management of life prisoners relied on by the AIRE Centre in its intervention was not binding and made no reference to voting and in any event the legislation was not incompatible with its principles.
- The measure was also proportionate as it only affected those who had been convicted of crimes sufficiently serious, in the individual circumstances, to warrant an immediate custodial sentence, excluding those subject to fines, suspended sentences, community service or detention for contempt of court as well as fine defaulters and remand prisoners. Moreover, as soon as prisoners ceased to be detained, the legal incapacity was removed. The duration was accordingly fixed by the court at the time of sentencing.
- As regards the allegedly arbitrary effects, the Government argued that, unless the Court were to hold that there was no margin of appreciation at all in this context, it had to be accepted that a line must be drawn somewhere. Finally, the impact on this particular applicant was not disproportionate since he was imprisoned for life and would not, in any event, have benefited from a more tailored ban, such as that in Austria, affecting those sentenced to a term of over one year. They concluded with
result in bringing to power individuals or groups that were in some way related to criminal structures. Moreover, the Chamber had failed to appreciate that in modern systems of criminal justice imprisonment was used as a last resort and that although the voting ban was automatic it still related to the assessment of the crime itself and the convict’s personality.
B. The Court’s assessment
1. General principles
- Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 appears at first sight to differ from the other rights guaranteed in the Convention and Protocols as it is phrased in terms of the obligation of the High Contracting Party to hold elections which ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people rather than in terms of a particular right or freedom.
- However, having regard to the preparatory work to Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 and the interpretation of the provision in the context of the Convention as a whole, the Court has established that it guarantees individual rights, including the right to vote and to stand for election (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt v. Belgium , judgment of 2 March 1987, Series A no. 113, pp. 22-23, §§ 46-51). Indeed, it was considered that the unique phrasing was intended to give greater solemnity to the Contracting States’ commitment and to emphasise that this was an area where they were required to take positive measures as opposed to merely refraining from interference (ibid., § 50).
- The Court has had frequent occasion to highlight the importance of democratic principles underlying the interpretation and application of the Convention (see, among other authorities, United Communist Party of Turkey and Others v. Turkey , judgment of 30 January 1998, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-I, pp. 21-22, § 45), and it would take this opportunity to emphasise that the rights guaranteed under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 are crucial to establishing and maintaining the foundations of an effective and meaningful democracy governed by the rule of law (see also the importance of these rights as recognised internationally in “Relevant international materials”, paragraphs 26-39 above).
- As pointed out by the applicant, the right to vote is not a privilege. In the twenty-first century, the presumption in a democratic State must be in favour of inclusion, as may be illustrated, for example, by the parliamentary history of the United Kingdom and other countries where the franchise was gradually extended over the centuries from select individuals, elite groupings or sections of the population approved of by those in power. Universal suffrage has become the basic principle (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt , cited above, p. 23, § 51, citing X v. Germany , no. 2728/66, Commission decision of 6 October 1967, Collection 25, pp. 38-41).
- Nonetheless, the rights bestowed by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 are not absolute. There is room for implied limitations and Contracting States must be allowed a margin of appreciation in this sphere.
- There has been much discussion of the breadth of this margin in the present case. The Court reaffirms that the margin in this area is wide (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt , cited above, p. 23, § 52, and, more recently, Matthews v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 24833/94, § 63, ECHR 1999-I; see also Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, § 201, ECHR 2000-IV, and Podkolzina v. Latvia , no. 46726/99, § 33, ECHR 2002-II). There are numerous ways of organising and running electoral systems and a wealth of differences, inter alia , in historical development, cultural diversity and political thought within Europe which it is for each Contracting State to mould into their own democratic vision.
- It is, however, for the Court to determine in the last resort whether the requirements of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 have been complied with; it has to satisfy itself that the conditions do not curtail the rights in question to such an extent as to impair their very essence and deprive them of their effectiveness; that they are imposed in pursuit of a legitimate aim; and that the means employed are not disproportionate (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt , p. 23, § 52). In particular, any conditions imposed must not thwart the free expression of the people in the choice of the legislature – in other words, they must reflect, or not run counter to, the concern to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of an electoral procedure aimed at identifying the will of the people through universal suffrage. For example, the imposition of a minimum age may be envisaged with a view to ensuring the maturity of those participating in the electoral process or, in some circumstances, eligibility may be geared to criteria, such as residence, to identify those with sufficiently continuous or close links to, or a stake in, the country concerned (see Hilbe v. Liechtenstein (dec.), no. 31981/96, ECHR 1999-VI, and Melnychenko v. Ukraine , no. 17707/02, § 56, ECHR 2004-X). Any departure from the principle of universal suffrage risks undermining the democratic validity of the legislature thus elected and the laws it promulgates. Exclusion of any groups or categories of the general population must accordingly be reconcilable with the underlying purposes of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (see, mutatis mutandis , Aziz v. Cyprus , no. 69949/01, § 28, ECHR 2004-V). 2. Prisoners
- The present case highlights the status of the right to vote of convicted prisoners who are detained.
- The case-law of the Convention organs has, in the past, accepted various restrictions on certain convicted persons.
- In some early cases, the Commission considered that it was open to the legislature to remove political rights from persons convicted of
