Research Task One

This document MUST be read in conjunction with the assessment paper.

You have been tasked with advising a government committee about allowing serving prisoners to vote. A serving prisoner is a person who has been convicted of a criminal offence and is serving a custodial sentence.

 

In England and Wales serving prisoners are prohibited from voting under section 3 Representation of the People Act 1983 (as amended by the Representation of the People Act 1985).

 

Forbidding a prisoner from voting is known as criminal disenfranchisement. Jurisdictions across the world take different approaches. For example:

• Albania allows all serving prisoners to vote irrespective of offence committed or length of sentence.
• Finland allows all serving prisoners to vote irrespective of offence committed or length of sentence.
• Germany has a partial ban on serving prisoners voting. Prisoners who have been convicted of a specific set of offences against the state or democratic order can have imposed by the sentencing judge an additional sentence of criminal disenfranchisement.
• In Russia no serving prisoner is allowed to vote.
• In Bulgaria no serving prisoner is allowed to vote.
• Most states in the US prohibit serving prisoners from voting.

 

You have been tasked with advising a committee by:

1. Explaining the current legal position on criminal disenfranchisement within England and Wales. Your consideration should involve evaluation of any relevant case law and consider any relevant Bills recently before parliament.
2. Evaluating the views of any International bodies including the European Court of Human Rights.
3. Comparing the position in England and Wales with one other jurisdiction. Your comparison should evaluate the pros and cons of relaxing or prohibiting criminal disenfranchisement.
4. Concluding whether criminal disenfranchisement should remain in full or part or be removed within England or Wales.

Your investigation into criminal disenfranchisement should be limited to whether serving prisoners should be given the right to vote. There are different categories of prisoners. It is up to you how you define prisoners. For example, you could limit by offence type or include all prisoners. You will need to be able to justify your definition.

Before you begin your research you should consider Horne A., and White, I., ‘Prisoners’ Voting Rights’ (2015, The House of Commons Standard Note SN/PC/017).

Before you present your findings to the committee, you will need to design a 1000 word research proposal which covers:

• how you are going to research this topic;
• the legal research methodologies you are going to use; and
• the ethical issues related to your legal research.

Your research proposal should follow the structure given in the Assignment Question document under the Assessment tab on the Module Homepage.

Your legal research methodology should include an examination of how you will compare the position in England and Wales with the position in at least ONE other jurisdiction.

 

Note:

There is no requirement to include empirical research in your proposal.  If you are planning to include empirical research in your proposal this must be authorized by your module tutor.

Your examination should include any relevant statute, consultations, reports, draft Bills, articles or cases and where appropriate the legal effect of these.