devise any alternative scheme which would not also have some element of arbitrariness about it. The Strasbourg court, having stepped back from the suggestion in Frodl v Austria (2010) 52 EHRR 267 that exclusion from the franchise requires a judicial decision in every case and approved the Italian law in Scoppola v Italy (No 3) (2012) 56 EHRR 663, must be taken to have accepted this. 99. However, I have no sympathy at all for either of these appellants. I cannot envisage any law which the United Kingdom Parliament might eventually pass on this subject which would grant either of them the right to vote. In Hirst v United Kingdom (No 2) (2005) 42 EHRR 849, the Strasbourg court declined to conclude that applying the ban to post-tariff life prisoners would necessarily be compatible with article 3 of the First Protocol. But it seems clear from the decision in Scoppola v Italy (No 3) that Strasbourg would now uphold a scheme which deprived murderers sentenced to life imprisonment of the right to vote, certainly while they remained in prison, and probably even after they were released on licence, as long as there was then a power of review. 100. Hence I cannot see how Mr Chester can sensibly have a claim to a remedy under the Human Rights Act. It may be, as Lord Mance has concluded, that he qualifies as a “victim” for the purpose of section 7 of the Human Rights Act. But this is only in the sense that, as the majority of the Grand Chamber in Hirst (No 2) held, he was directly affected by the law in question. This justified that court, in the majority view, examining the compatibility of the law with the Convention, irrespective of whether he might justifiably have been deprived of the vote under some other law. A strong minority, including the then President, Judge Wildhaber, and his successor, Judge Costa, pointed out that this was not the usual practice of the court (para OIII8): “The Court has consistently held in its case law that its task is not normally to review the relevant law and practice in abstracto, but to determine whether the manner in which they were applied to, or affected, the applicant gave rise to a violation of the Convention. It is, in our opinion, difficult to see in what circumstances restrictions on voting rights would be acceptable, if not in the case of persons sentenced to life imprisonment. Generally speaking, the Court's judgment concentrates above all on finding the British legislation incompatible with the Convention in abstracto. We regret that despite this focus it gives the states little or no guidance as to what would be solutions compatible with the Convention. Since restrictions on the right to vote continue to be compatible, it would seem obvious that the deprivation of the right to vote for the most serious offences such as murder or manslaughter, is not excluded in the future. Either the majority are of the view that deprivations for the post-tariff period are excluded, or else they think that a judge has Page 47