Scottish Human Rights Law Group

The Joint Committee on Human Rights fifteenth report of the Parliamentary session 09-10 has been published, the summary of the report on Enhancing Parliament’s role in relation to human rights judgments states:
“This is our fourth report of the Parliament dealing with adverse judgments by the European Court of Human Rights and declarations of incompatibility issued by the domestic courts under …

Jamie Doward
Observer, February 7, 2010, 23
A coalition of judicial experts, lawyers and politicians has warned the Government that its continued ban on prisoners voting could lead to a series of legal challenges after the 2010 general election. In 2009 the Government acknowledged that some prisoners must be allowed to vote in line with a 2001 European Court of Human …

The Council of Europe has stated that the next UK general election could give rise to human rights challenges, as convicted prisoners …

It is clear that the Scottish Parliament constitutes a “legislature” for the purposes of Article 3 Protocol 1.[1]   Section 11(1) of the Scotland Act 1998 provides that the persons entitled to vote at an election for the Scottish Parliament are those who on the day of the poll
“(a) would be entitled to vote as electors at a local government election …

In X v Scottish Ministers [1] the question with which the Inner House was faced was the effect which this declaration of incompatibility had upon the validity of actions of the Scottish Ministers, which resulted in individuals becoming subject to this Convention incompatible automatic disenfranchisement.   The petitioner, who had been released on licence was recalled to prison to serve the …