ABSTRACT
The perceived deficiencies of the Common Law, with regard to the protection of the rights of prisoners, was used, by Lord Scarman and other judges and human rights lawyers, when they mounted their arguments, in the 1960s and 1970s, for the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into the national laws of the United Kingdom. The disagreement between the Strasbourg court and the United Kingdom Parliament did not give rise to any such justification for ignoring the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on the voting rights of prisoners. The High Court held that the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 had given the Commission the widest discretionary powers. The Secretary of State had refused to pay compensation to both men on the ground that it had not been proved that a 'miscarriage of justice' had taken place.
