European Court of human Rights rules yet again that UK prisoners voting rights have been breached, in Scotland unpopular Nicola Sturgeon fails yet again to uphold human rights, SNP stance of not supporting a Tory Government exposed as a farce

Dear All

Sometime ago, I did an article for the Think Scotland website on why Prisoners should be allowed to vote. In politics doing the right thing is more important than appeasing the general public.

Politicians are supposed to be a safeguard to curb the excesses of the State and when needed the public who sometimes get swept along by emotion on a particular issue, they are supposed to bring leadership and clarity.

At present, all political parties are signed up to what I call, ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’.

That means they see prisoners as being unworthy of help, that said they still allow prisoners access to certain human rights while denying others.

The right to vote in a free and fair election!

So, why do we give all people human rights?

Why do we not restrict such human rights to the ‘good’ people, after all isn’t a bad person deemed less worthy?

When someone comes to your door to canvass your vote, they don’t ask if you are worthy to vote, the assumption is that since you aren’t in prison, you are worthy. You maybe a convicted murderer, rapist, arsonist or paedophile out on licence and still the political party member will try to sell you their message.

A murderer in prison is deemed not worthy of the vote, but a murderer out of prison on licence is, that is the situation.

Also is a murderer out of prison a more acceptable person than a shoplifter who is currently on remand in terms of voting?

According to the State they are!

The crime they committed is not important but rather are they detained legally or not by the State.

Why do we give ‘bad’ people human rights?

We do so because the law says so, it isn’t a matter of popularity, it is a matter of due process; whether they exercise those rights should be their personal choice.

Human rights cannot and should not be simply removed without very good reason, for example, we imprison people, their right to a family life ceases when they are put in prison. This is because the State has a duty to protect other citizens; therefore imprisonment is not a breach of human rights.

During the independence referendum the SNP Government denied prisoners the right to vote in Scotland’s future.

This was done for political reasons so that the SNP couldn’t be tagged by the Unionist parties as being ‘weak or soft on crime’. Also to justify the illegality the Nationalists cited the right to vote wasn’t allowed in England.

Two wrongs don’t make a right!

The other reason not to give prisoners the vote was all about avoiding the press having a field day of bad publicity directed towards the SNP with people in other parties expressing their horror and shock, how they felt ‘sick to the stomach’.

In politics, one of the things that careerists practice is ‘fake outrage’.

One wonders when they knock on a murderer’s door, do they get the same sickie feeling?

Scotland’s unpopular First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at present is doing a ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’; this is her ending the automatic release of prisoners. You can argue the merits of whether this notion was properly thought-out given her track record of getting it wrong.

So, all the political parties are against giving prisoners the vote along with the press. The press of course want to flag up the worst people such as convicted paedophiles and murderers in Scotland’s prisons to ensure that the public are so outrage that they don’t stop to consider they have been dupe into backing illegality of a government.

We give people human rights ensure they are not subject to injustice, and we hope the State will honour such rights, good, bad, like or dislike doesn’t come into it or shouldn’t.

Prisoners have had their human rights violated after being denied the vote, European judges have ruled.

This is a fairly obvious and straight forward judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), it is a surprised judgment and anyone who understands human rights properly would also arrive at the same verdict.

More than a 1,000 UK prisoners, including dozens of Scots, were unlawfully stopped from taking part in various elections between 2009 and 2011. A violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights - right to a free election, This happened on both sides of the Scottish/English border, previously Scotland’s ‘jolly fat man’ Alex Salmond, the ‘oracle of all wisdom’ in the known universe said that Scots possessed a higher sense of fairness than English people.

If that was case, why didn’t this clown recognise the illegality and why didn’t he do something about it?

It was more important to cheat to win the referendum than do the right thing; the SNP talk of being ‘progressive’ is utter garbage to dupe the gullible.

‘Progressive’ in the SNP means enhancing the life chances of the few at the expense of the many.

So, will unpopular Nicola Sturgeon and her new Justice Sec take this opportunity to right a wrong?

No!

Matheson much like his predecessor Kenny MacAskill is another dud; a real Justice Sec would fix this just in the way as they would kill off the disastrous corroboration bill and repeal the OBA Act.

Not because people are unhappy but because they are the Justice Sec.

Kenny MacAskill was nothing more than a shitty ambulance chaser that climbed into bed the Crown Office, a disgrace and the worst Justice Sec in the history of the Scottish Parliament.

Al Megrahi!

The European Court has ruled that there had been a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council of Europe’s Committee has “noted with profound concern and disappointment that the United Kingdom authorities did not introduce a Bill to parliament at the start of its 2014-2015 session as recommended by the competent parliamentary committee”.

  

The Conservatives down south are equally as guilty, but they have used justice or in this case denial of justice as a main plank of their party conferences for years. Someone gets up on stage to vent about crime and how angry they are, and the crowd clap wildly.

No one is allowed to stand on stage and put the opposite view.

At present having no ideas with any merit, Scotland’s unpopular First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is busy copying the English, she is doing so re; Schools and will probably use David Cameron or Ed Miliband as cover for failure to act on prisoner voting rights.

You see Nicola isn’t very bright, she isn’t a leader of men, and she isn’t a social justice champion; that is a sick joke which the SNP like to spread to make her look ‘caring’.

I don’t expect to hear from the new Justice Sec anytime soon either.

A MoJ (England) spokesman said:

“The Government has always been clear that it believes prisoner voting is an issue that should ultimately be decided in the UK. However, we welcome the court’s decision to refuse convicted prisoners costs or damages.”

The problem with this statement is that government considers this a political issue rather than what is actually is a legal issue! Given Ukip has joined the ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ club, there won’t be any movement on this issue, likewise the SNP will copy the English position until the English are forced to change.

The SNP stance of not supporting a Tory Government didn’t last long; it was a farce right from the start, just part of grudge, grievance and malcontent roadshow of angry wee Nat Nicola Sturgeon.

And you don’t have to dig down very far to see it.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University