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European Court of Human Rights
September 2, 2014
Firth and Others v United Kingdom
(Application Nos 47784/09, 47806/09, 47812/09, 47818/09, 47829/09, 49001/09, 49007/09, 49018/09, 49033/09 and 49036/09)
Before I. Ziemele, President, and Judges P. Hirvelä, G. Nicolaou, L. Bianku, Z. Kalaydjieva, P. Mahoney and K. Wojtyczek
Section Registrar: F. Elens-Passos
Judgment August 12, 2014
As the European Court of Human Rights had already indicated that the automatic ban on convicted prisoners in the United Kingdom voting constituted a violation of the right to participate in free elections and that a declaration to that effect constituted sufficient satisfaction, compensation and legal costs would not be awarded to future applicants alleging the same violation.
The European Court of Human Rights so stated when determining, by 5 votes to 2, with judges Nicolaou and Wojtyczek dissenting, that that there had been a violation of article 3 of Protocol No 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to free elections, in respect of ten applicants who, as an automatic consequence of their convictions and detention pursuant to sentences of imprisonment, had been unable to vote in the elections for the European Parliament in 2009.
The court said that it noted that in Greens and M.T v United Kingdom (Application Nos 60041/08 and 60054/08) (The Times, November 24, 2010) it had found the statutory ban on prisoners voting in the elections to the European Parliament of June 4, 2009, to be, by reason of its blanket character, incompatible with article 3 of Protocol No 1. It had, in that judgment, indicated that some legislative amendment would be required to make the electoral law compatible with the Convention.
In the present judgment, the Court recognised the recent steps taken in the UK with the publication of a draft bill and the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee appointed to examine the bill. Given, however, that the legislation remained unamended, the Court concluded that there had been a violation of article 3 of Protocol No 1 to the Convention.
As in previous judgments concerning prisoners’ right to vote, including Hirst (No 2) v United Kingdom (Application No 74025/01) (The Times, October 10, 2005; ECHR 2005-IX) and Greens and M.T, the Court held that the finding of a violation constituted sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants. It therefore declined to award any compensation.
The Court also rejected the applicants’ claim for legal costs. It referred to its remarks in Greens and M.T., at paragraph 120, where it had indicated that it would be unlikely to award costs in future follow-up cases.
The present applicants, in lodging their applications, had only been required to cite article 3 of Protocol No 1, allege that they had been detained pursuant to a sentence of imprisonment at the date of the election in question and confirm that they had been otherwise eligible to vote in that election. The lodging of such an application was straightforward and did not require legal assistance. The Court therefore concluded that the legal costs claimed had not been reasonably and necessarily incurred.