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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/inmates-will-be-allowed-to-vote.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said the Government could not 'defy the law' and would have to allow some prisoners to vote" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/min-inmates-will-be-allowed-to-vote.jpg" alt="Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said the Government could not 'defy the law' and would have to allow some prisoners to vote"/></a></p>
<p>Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has said the Government cannot &#8220;defy the law&#8221; and will have to allow at least some prisoners to vote in future.</p>
<p>It comes as the Commons&#8217; Political and Constitutional Reform Committee found the current blanket ban was &#8220;illegal under international law founded on the UK&#8217;s treaty obligations&#8221;.</p>
<p>MPs will debate the ban and the UK&#8217;s position in Parliament on Thursday ahead of a vote on the issue.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have to fulfil our obligations but we are not going to give the vote to any more prisoners than was necessary to comply with the law,&#8221; Mr Clarke told BBC Radio 4&#8217;s Today. &#8220;What we can&#8217;t do is just defy the law and pretend we are going to go wandering off.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mr Clarke added: &#8220;The idea that we are going to give the vote to murderers and rapists and some of the more alarmist reports is complete nonsense.</p>
<p>&#8220;Of course, the most serious people can&#8217;t possibly be given the vote &#8211; they should lose their civil rights. Probably the least serious ones will obviously get the vote and there will be a cut-off somewhere.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury has backed calls for prisoners to be given the right to vote. Dr Rowan Williams said prisoners&#8217; civic status should not be put in &#8220;cold storage&#8221; while they are behind bars and the UK needed to move beyond a &#8220;situation where the victimising of the prisoner by the denial of those basic civic issues is perpetuated&#8221;.</p>
<p>The Government is currently proposing to allow the vote to all inmates serving less than four years, in response to a European Court of Human Rights ruling which could otherwise open up the floodgates to compensation claims totalling millions of pounds.</p>
<p>But the move &#8211; which Prime Minister David Cameron said made him feel &#8220;physically ill&#8221; &#8211; has been met by stiff opposition from some MPs, and there have been indications that the vote may be restricted to those serving a year or less.</p>
<p>Thursday&#8217;s motion, tabled by Tory former shadow home secretary David Davis and Labour&#8217;s former Justice Secretary Jack Straw, states that the decision on prisoners&#8217; votes should be one for democratically elected lawmakers and states that &#8220;no sentenced prisoner&#8221; should be granted the vote except those jailed for debt default or contempt of court.</p>
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