issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 052 (2015)

10.02.2015

Remaining legacy prisoner voting cases: ECHR finds violation of the right to

vote but awards no compensation or legal costs

In today’s Committee judgment in the case of McHugh and Others v. the United Kingdom

(no. 51987/08 and 1,014 others), which is final¹, the European Court of Human Rights held,

unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections) to the European Convention on

Human Rights.

The case concerned 1,015 prisoners who, as an automatic consequence of their convictions and

detention pursuant to sentences of imprisonment, were unable to vote in elections. The Court

concluded that there had been a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 because the case was

identical to other prisoner voting cases in which a breach of the right to vote had been found and

the relevant legislation had not yet been amended.

It rejected the applicants’ claim for compensation and legal costs.

Principal facts

The 1,015 applicants were all incarcerated at the relevant time following criminal convictions for a

variety of offences. They were automatically prevented from voting, pursuant to primary legislation,

in one or more elections in 2009, 2010 or 2011.

Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court

Relying on Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections), all applicants complained of a breach

of their right to vote.

The applications were lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on various dates between

19 August 2009 and 31 October 2011.

Judgment was given by a Committee of three judges, composed as follows:

Päivi Hirvelä (Finland), President,

Nona Tsotsoria (Georgia),

Faris Vehabović (Bosnia and Herzegovina),

and also Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar.

1 Under Article 28 of the Convention, judgments delivered by a Committee are final.

Final judgments are transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of their execution. Further

information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution

Decision of the Court

Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections)

The Court noted that it had found the statutory ban on prisoners voting in elections to be, by reason

of its blanket character, incompatible with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1. It remarked that in Greens and

M.T. v. the United Kingdom (application nos. 60041/08 and 60054/08) it had indicated that some

legislative amendment would be required to make the electoral law compatible with the

Convention.

Given, however, that the legislation remained unamended, the Court concluded that, as in Hirst

(No. 2) v. the United Kingdom (no. 74025/01) Greens and M.T. v. the United Kingdom and Firth and

Others v. the United Kingdom (no. 47784/09 and nine others), there had been a violation of Article 3

of Protocol No. 1.

Article 41 (just satisfaction)

As in previous judgments concerning prisoners’ right to vote (including Hirst (No. 2), Greens and

M.T., Scoppola (No. 3) v. Italy and Firth and Others), 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 did not consider that legal assistance

was required to lodge an application, for the reasons given in Firth and Others. The Court’s approach

to follow-up cases was made clear in that judgment, which was both concise and unambiguous. No

legal assistance was required to consider its implications.

The judgment is available only in English.

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member

States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.