---

Voting by Prisoners

I start my comments in light of the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament, as set out in Hood Phillips's ““Constitutional and Administrative Law””. As paragraph 3.13 clearly states:"““The legislative supremacy of Parliament means that Parliament (The Queen, Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled) can pass law on any topic affecting any persons, and that there are no fundamental laws which Parliament cannot amend or repeal.””" Secondly, all our main legal authorities—from Dicey to Coke and Blackstone—assert that Parliament has the right to make or unmake any law whatsoever. Thirdly, no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having the right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament. In that light, if the House were to vote to confirm the current legislative provision that prisoners should not have the right to vote, that must surely be respected. Once a document is recognised as an Act of Parliament, no English court can refuse to obey it or question its validity. That is our common law, as established in the case of Manuel v. Attorney-General of 1983. The courts of our land must therefore respect the wishes of Parliament. Schedule 3 to the Representation of the People Act 1983, as amended by the Representation of the People Act 1985, makes it quite clear that someone convicted and sentenced to imprisonment loses the capacity to vote.