91Èȱ¬

Can you picture the scene? Can you?

The knife-edge by-election turned when the last ballot box arrives from . . . Barlinnie?

Or the hustings meeting with a captive audience, warmed up by a recording of Johnny Cash singing "San Quentin"?

Or the canvassing? I can assure you, sir, that we plan to be very tough on crime indeed.

Or, rather, when I say tough . . .

Idle speculation prompted by the prospect that prisoners will now get the right to vote, in line with advice from the European Court of Human Rights (who seem to be looming large in Scottish legal circles at the moment.)

The UK coalition government has reportedly concluded that it will cost too much in money and person-power to continue to resist the ECHR ruling.

Partial retreat

Cue outrage - and concomitant suggestions that it may be possible to restrict this concession to those on shorter sentences while continuing to withhold the right from those convicted of the most serious offences.

Myself, I find it hard to follow that particular piece of reasoning.

One can argue that prisoners deprive themselves of voting rights by the very fact of incarceration.

But how can one sustain an argument that involves a partial retreat?

If voting is an elemental right for those in the slammer, then that is it, isn't it?

A right is a right.

Those who advocate such a concession say that the purpose of prison is to seek to reintegrate convicts within society - and that the exercise of democracy can form part of that effort.

Serious offenders

They argue, further, that punishment is meted out by the simple deprivation of liberty: that there should not be further infringements of rights which would be available outside the walls of prison.

Politically, among the major parties, only the Lib Dems seem to be backing this move in Scotland - and even they don't sound notably enthusiastic and lodge a caveat re serious offenders.

The SNP are against. As are Labour. As are the Tories - who stepped up the volume of their criticism of the ECHR and its incorporation into Scots Law.

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