Strasbourg in the Dock
Prisoner Voting, Human Rights & the Case for Democracy
Published on 20. April 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
62 pages
978-1-906837-21-1 (ISBN)
Description
The ruling that convicted prisoners have the right to vote has put the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg at loggerheads with the UK Parliament and, hence, the will of the British people. This was reinforced in 2011 when backbenchers of all parties rejected enfranchising prisoners in a free vote. In this forensic examination, Dominic Raab, MP for Esher and Walton, explains how the infamous Hirst ruling undermines the express terms of the Convention agreed in 1950. Contracting states agreed that holding free elections was a human right, but reserved for nation states the right to decide who was eligible to vote. As a result, the Strasbourg Court is acting beyond its legitimate powers of interpretation. It is now making law too! Prisoner voting is just one of many areas where the European Court is engaging in judicial empire-building. Its judges are usurping the role of legislators, and disrupting Britain's fine-tuned separation of powers - crucial for maintaining the rule of law. Raab sets out how to deal with the human rights contagion.
He proposes to enable the UK Supreme Court to overrule Strasbourg, allow the will of Parliament to supersede human rights claims, and enshrine the power of free votes to block adverse decisions. This will ensure that the democratic majority can check the will of unelected judges.
He proposes to enable the UK Supreme Court to overrule Strasbourg, allow the will of Parliament to supersede human rights claims, and enshrine the power of free votes to block adverse decisions. This will ensure that the democratic majority can check the will of unelected judges.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 4 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-906837-21-1 (9781906837211)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Dominic Raab studied law at Oxford and Cambridge, where he won the Clive Parry Prize for International Law. He started his career as an international lawyer at Linklaters, working on project finance, international litigation and competition law. He also spent time on secondments at Liberty and in Brussels advising on EU and WTO law. In 2000 he joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office where he advised on a wide range of briefs, including UK investor protection, maritime issues, counter-proliferation and counter-terrorism, the UK overseas territories and the international law of outer space. In 2003, he was posted to The Hague to head up a new team, focused on bringing war criminals-including Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic and Charles Taylor-to justice. On return to London, he advised on the Arab-Israeli conflict, EU law and Gibraltar. He left the FCO in 2006, and worked for three years as chief of staff to respective Shadow Home and Justice Secretaries, advising in the House of Commons on crime, policing, immigration, counter-terrorism, human rights and constitutional reform. On 6 May 2010, he was elected MP for Esher and Walton. In January 2009, he published his first book, The Assault on Liberty-What Went Wrong with Rights (Fourth Estate), criticising the Labour government's approach to human rights and making the case for a British Bill of Rights. In October 2010, he followed this with Fight Terror, Defend Freedom, on the Home Office counter-terrorism review. Dominic Raab has visited, studied and worked across Europe, the US, Latin America and Asia. He is partic-ularly interested in the Middle East, having studied and worked in Israel and the West Bank, and travelled around Egypt and Pakistan. In 1998, he spent a summer at Birzeit University (near Ramallah), and worked for one of the principal Palestinian negotiators of the Oslo peace accords, assessing World Bank projects on the West Bank.
Content
Author. Foreword, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC. Summary. 1 Prisoner Voting-the Background to Hirst. 2 The Case for Democracy. 3 Democratic Accountability at Home. 4 Reform Abroad. 5 The EU Dimension.