"Persuasive arguments" for allowing all prisoners to vote: Faculty

"Persuasive arguments" can be made for allowing all prisoners to vote in elections in Scotland, including any future referendum, the Faculty of Advocates suggested today.

Faculty was responding to a Scottish Government consultation on a proposal that only prisoners on short sentences should be given a vote. The current blanket ban has been held to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

In its response, Faculty says the question of restricting prisoner voting provokes strong views on either side, and reasonable people differed in their opinions.

"The Faculty notes that persuasive arguments can be made in support of removing the ban on prisoner voting in its entirety", the response states, citing a report last year by Holyrood’s Equalities & Human Rights Committee.

"However, the Faculty considers that this is ultimately a question for the Scottish Parliament."

Its own answers propose giving the right to some prisoners, depending on length of sentence, but with the threshold being set at four years.

"The main reason for that suggestion is that four years is already recognised as the appropriate point at which to differentiate between prisoners, marking as it does the boundary between ‘short term’ and ‘long term’ prisoners… it marks an obvious point at which to differentiate also between those prisoners who are entitled to vote and those who are not." However where to draw the line is ultimately a policy decision for the legislature.

Whereas the Scottish Government’s proposal would apply to Scottish Parliament and local government elections, Faculty observes: "If the right to vote in local elections is extended to prisoners to the same extent as is done in respect of parliamentary elections, maintaining a blanket ban on prisoners voting in any future referendum would seem increasingly anomalous. It would seem sensible that prisoners’ right to vote in any such referendum should be co-extensive with their right to vote in parliamentary and local elections."

Click here to view the full response.