Human Rights and Wrongs
The BBC reports that 10 convicted criminals from Scotland have lost their battle over the right to vote while being banged up in jail, but how dumb is it that this argument went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights before a panel of judges decided that their human rights had indeed been breached, albeit in a manner that deserved no compensation.
Because the whole point of being sent to prison is that it denies people of one of the most basic rights of all, the right to liberty and freedom of association, so what's the big deal about refusing to allow prisoners the vote when they are denied lots of other privileges as a visible sign of society's disapproval of their crimes.
Next things you know they'll be demanding that prison becomes like a home from home instead of a place where criminals reflect on their anti-social behaviour and determine to get their lives back on track.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the UK has again breached prisoners' rights by failing to give them the vote.
But it refused to award damages to the 10 inmates bringing the action, saying the ruling in their favour was enough.
The group, who are prisoners in Scottish jails, argued the UK's ban on them voting in the 2009 European elections breached their human rights.
The UK has already been told it must allow some prisoners to vote.
Both the previous Labour government and current coalition have failed to legislate to change the law - although Parliamentarians have been considering various proposals from ministers to end the long-running row with the Strasbourg court.
In the latest case, the court - which oversees human rights law that the UK signed up to - had been asked to award damages to the inmates because of the UK's repeated failure over almost a decade to end the blanket ban on voting.
But although the court said the inmates, who include sex offenders, had suffered a breach of their rights, they were not entitled to any compensation.
In their ruling, judges said that in the vast majority of cases relating to prisoners' votes they had had "expressly declined" to order governments to make payments to convicted criminals.
"As in those cases, in the present case the court concludes that the finding of a violation constitutes sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants," said the latest ruling.
They also refused to order the British government to pay the inmates' legal costs.
In a dissenting ruling, one of the judges complained the case should never have come before the court - because it had repeatedly demonstrated that it had no settled view over votes for prisoners - making it even harder for individual governments to work out what to do to avoid further claims.
