Executive Summary
Section 3 of the UK Representation of the People Act 1983 bans all prisoners serving custodial sentences from voting in parliamentary and local elections
The ban applies irrespective of the length of the sentence
In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the Hirst case that, as the ban was a blanket one, it breached Article 3 of Protocol No 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights which requires states to: “hold free elections (…) under conditions which will ensure the free expression...