Matthew has slammed the proposal for convicted prisoners serving a custodial sentence to vote in elections. Responding to a parliamentary debate on Tuesday 11th January, Matthew was a leading critic of the idea because criminals would have influence over criminal justice policy and how the law is implemented.
The issue has arisen because of a case brought by John Hirst, a man who was convicted of manslaughter after killing his landlady with an axe in 1980. Hirst was jailed for a minimum of 15 years for the unprovoked attack, but went on to serve 25 because of his poor behaviour in prison. Hirst took the case to the High Court in 2001 and pursued the case to the European Court of Human Rights in 2005. This court ruled in his favour but the then Labour government failed to take any action. At this point it was only the Joint Committee on Human Rights who wanted this case to be resolved in favour of convicted prisoners.
In the ruling the Strasbourg judges said that the voting ban should go because Parliament had never properly discussed the issue. But MPs had full opportunities to debate the question in 1983, when the voting ban was modernised, and in 2000, when new laws ensured that prisoners held on remand awaiting trial could continue to vote.
Matthew said: “We are not talking about fictional characters such as Andy Dufresne in the Shawshank Redemption or Norman Stanley Fletcher in Porridge. The proposal – driven by the former Chairman of the Joint Human Rights Committee - is to give murderers, rapists and paedophiles the opportunity to elect Members of Parliament. To me – and the many people who made their views known to me at a residents’ meeting last week - this is a totally unacceptable idea. If there was one reason alone for abolishing the Human Rights Act this is it.”