ARTICLE 3, PROTOCOL 1:
The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.

What a cop-out that decision was. Hirst laid a clear principle: a blanket ban on prisoners voting ( Read more... )

Last November, 80 Stoke City football fans were rounded up by Greater Manchester Police under Section 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006. Their crime? A belief that they may cause trouble later. The fans were on their way to watch their team play Manchester United when they stopped at the Railway Inn in Irlam. Although there was no ( Read more... )

I've copied a speech made by the Lib Dem Shadow Home Sec, Chris Huhne, at the British Institute of Human Rights on 5 May. For someone who isn't a trained lawyer I was thoroughly impressed with his knowledge of the Law and how to reform it. I also found it useful how he distinguished between human and citizens' rights. A very important distinction. ( Read more... )

"Your Lordships have had your attention called to the evils of the exercise of arbitrary powers of arrest by the executive, and the necessity of subjecting all such powers to judicial control. Your Lordships have been reminded of the great constitutional conflicts in the seventeenth century, which culminated in the famous constitutional charters, ( Read more... )