A matter of law

[andrewducker]

I'm somewhat confused by the fuss over the votes for prisoners stuff that's currently in the newspapers.

The government has to do _something_, as it's been found to be in the wrong by the Europan Court of Human Rights. However, it seems unsure what, exactly, it has to do to be in the right. I know that human rights legislation is going to have some grey areas, but is there a reason why the ECHR wouldn't say "You are doing X, which is wrong, in order to be compliant you must do Y."?

Comments

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

on a brief skim-read.. one of the issues is that European Directives aren't actually laws. Laws just have to cover Directives. As such the EU *can't* tell the member bodies how to implement Directives, because that would be telling them how to write their own laws, which would be illegal.

I Am Not A Lawyer, and may not even be commenting on the right thing.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Some European Directives have direct effect and some are, as you say, instructions to national governments to legislate to X effect.

It's all very murky.