Riddell: Battle between Parliament and judges only just begun

The conflict over human rights will test our constitution to breaking point, writes Mary Riddell in The Telegraph today (small extract follows):

The rage unleashed by the verdict in the Shoesmith case is illustrative of the mounting hostility between the judiciary and Parliament. Judges and politicians do not, and should not, always agree. The danger is that their differences, for which the catalyst is usually though not invariably human rights, become a power battle leading to constitutional meltdown. That zero-sum game has begun.

The fight is not merely arm-wrestling between two different limbs of the constitution. The third player is the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, with a jurisdiction stretching from Reykjavik to Vladivostock and encompassing the 47 member states of the Council of Europe.

Tensions between these three have already brought Britain to what some regard as the brink of constitutional crisis. In fact, the stand-off has barely started. Coming over the horizon are three issues that may test the current settlement to breaking point. The first is prisoner voting. In February, Parliament decided, by a majority of 212, to defy a 2005 ruling by the Strasbourg court to outlaw a blanket ban. With the appeal process exhausted, Britain now has no legal option but to offer some prisoners the vote, as is the common European practice.

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