Human rights judges have given David Cameron six months to honour the coalition Government's pledge to give prisoners the vote. The ultimatum was announced in Strasbourg after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in an Italian case "it is up to member states to decide how to regulate the ban on prisoners' voting". The judges said the decision amounted to confirmation of a ruling against the UK in 2005 that a blanket ban on all serving prisoners losing voting rights is a breach of their human rights. The UK was given nine months to introduce at least partial voting rights for some prisoners in November 2011, but has not done so. The deadline was extended after the UK authorities asked to make legal submissions in the Italian case, and a new six-month deadline is triggered with the ruling. But the Human Rights Court said it now accepted the UK Government argument that "each state has a wide discretion as to how it regulates the ban, both as regards the types of offence that should result in the loss of the vote and as to whether disenfranchisement should be ordered by a judge in an individual case or should result from general application of a law". The wrangle with Strasbourg began when UK inmates complained that the loss of voting rights violated a Human Rights Convention Article guaranteeing the "right to free elections". The court twice decreed the UK's total ban on votes for prisoners to be illegal. But the Labour government left the ban in place, and Tory inaction despite a second ruling in 2010 angered civil liberties groups.
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