European Union court takes United Kingdom line on welfare checks, prisoner votes

And it ruled again in February that the rights of United Kingdom prisoners were breached when they were prevented from voting in elections.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) found that Thierry Delvigne’s loss of voting rights when convicted was in line with EU law.

Lawyers for the British, French and Spanish governments argued that the ECJ had no right to rule over prisoner voting.

A UK Government spokesman said: “The European Court has confirmed French restrictions on prisoner voting are lawful”.

Struggling with challenges from the anti-EU UK Independence Party and a strong Eurosceptic wing in his own Conservatives, he has pledged to resist calls from the Strasbourg human rights court to amend legislation that bans prisoners from voting.

France’s law banned prisoners from voting if they were jailed for more than five years, while Britain’s wider ban takes into account anyone serving a jail term or on remand.

Britain is defying a ruling by the Court of Human Rights that the ban – from the 1870 Forfeiture Act depriving convicts of their citizenship – must be dropped.

Cameron, however, has drawn scepticism from EU officials and fellow government leaders by asking to be allowed to restrict social payments to workers from other EU states for up to four years after their arrival – a move that many in Brussels say would breach EU laws banning discrimination against EU citizens.

If the court had ruled in his favour this morning, United Kingdom prisoners could have claimed the right to vote as well.

The controversy over prisoner votes is far from over.

Britain asks migrants to demonstrate their right to residence in what it sees as a proportionate step to ensure it pays out benefits to those sufficiently integrated in the country, according to the statement.

The Government immediately declared that Britain’s ban on prisoner voting would stay in place and remained “a matter for the UK Supreme Court and Parliament to determine”. “The British Parliament has spoken and the Supreme Court in Britain has spoken so I’m content to leave it there”, Cameron told the LBC network.

“The lifetime ban – in this case for a former prisoner, after he left prison – was considered as proportionate, taking into account the nature and gravity of the criminal offence committed”.

But even before the judgment was announced, David Cameron – who has ignored a series of ECHR rulings on the issue – made clear he had no intention of relaxing the ban. “This judgement applies specifically to European elections, not national elections”.