Writing in the latest edition of the New Statesman Clive Stafford Smith legal Director of the charity Reprieve makes a compelling and powerful argument for a fully elected House of Lords, taking voting as a fundamental human right that should be championed he exposes the anti-democratic nature of the House of Lords. He writes “Everyone proclaims a commitment to human rights, but in Britain the vision of which rights a human being should enjoy remains opaque… Voting is arguably the most basic of human rights. Article 3 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which Britain signed up to nine years ago, requires that signatory states “undertake to hold free elections . . . which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature”. The second chamber of Britain’s legislature is the Lords.” He believes that a legal challenge to the undemocratic nature of the Lords could well succeed, but argues that it should not have to come to that, and rightly so.

Condemning the make-up of the cross-party working group led by Jack Straw as “akin to debating the reform or abolition of the monarchy, but limiting the committee to members of the Windsor family and the aristocracy.” Clive Stafford clearly makes the argument that ordinary citizens should be involved in the process of deciding how the reformed Lords should be constituted and elected. He goes on to question some “…striking omissions. Nowhere is it mentioned that the people have a legal and moral right to elect their legislators. The bravest suggestion is that the House should be partially elected, as there is an “expectation that in a modern parliament the second chamber should have a degree of democratic legitimacy”. Only a “degree”?”

He also recognises that there is “a legitimate debate over how citizens should exercise their right to vote, from first-past-the-post to proportional representation. But there can surely be no sensible debate over whether citizens should vote. That is a human right.”

The Campaign for a Democratic Upper House believes that this is an important debate that must be undertaken. Clive Stafford Smith would argue that with the European Court of Human Rights and the House of Commons on the side of democracy then Jack Straw will be pushed in the direction of proposing a fully elected Upper House.

CDUH believes that at the very least he will have to ensure that, whatever the final proportion of elected Lords is, that the reforms are radical, enhance participation at every stage and have a genuine sense of ownership through involving ordinary citizens in the processes to reform the Lords. This is part of the drive that should be led by the Labour movement to renew our democracy and make it fit for purpose in the 21st Century; only Labour can deliver on Lords reform, lets make sure our leaders choose change, because the time for change is now.

Read the article in full here.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.