109. As I see it, the thrust of the conclusions in the Strasbourg cases is that a blanket ban is disproportionate and indiscriminate, at any rate without detailed analysis of the problem because, as it is put at para 82 of Hirst (No 2), the ban applies automatically to all prisoners irrespective of the nature and gravity of the relevant offence or the individual circumstances of the particular offender. It thus applies to those sentenced to very short sentences and operates in an arbitrary way for two reasons. First, it applies in the same way to a person sentenced to 28 days or 28 years. Yet there is clearly an enormous gulf in terms of culpability between those sentenced to 28 days for, say, persistent shoplifting and those sentenced to 28 years for a very serious offence. Secondly, whether a person loses the right to vote depends upon the chance that the relevant person happens to be in prison on a particular day, by comparison perhaps with a co-defendant who received an identical sentence but is on bail pending appeal. Moreover, it is difficult to see how it can be proportionate to deprive a person of a vote which is relevant to the governance of the state for a period of five years in circumstances where that person may be in prison for no more than 14 days. 110. I appreciate that, wherever the line may be drawn, there may be an element of arbitrariness as to the choice and effect of a particular line. But there seems to me to be much to be said for the Strasbourg Court’s approach to a blanket ban, at any rate absent detailed consideration of the pros and cons of such a ban. However that may be, I agree that this Court should follow the now settled jurisprudence in the Strasbourg Court for the reasons given by Lord Mance and Lord Sumption. 111. Since writing the above, I have read the judgment of Baroness Hale in draft and would simply like to add that I agree with it. LORD SUMPTION (with whom Lord Hughes agrees) 112. I agree with the orders proposed by Lord Mance, for all of the reasons that he gives in his judgment as well as those given in the judgment of Lady Hale. I wish to add my own observations on one question only, namely whether we should apply the principles stated by the European Court of Human Rights in Hirst (No 2) and Scoppola. It is an issue which raises in an acute form the potential conflict between the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights by the European Court of Human Rights and the processes by which alone laws are made in a democracy. The conflict arises from the requirement of the European Court of Human Rights that the United Kingdom should amend the Representation of the People Act 1983 so as to give at least some convicted prisoners the right to vote in national and local elections, something for which there is at present only negligible support in the House of Commons and very little among the public at large. If democracy is viewed as a system of decision-making by those answerable to the Page 51