fewer costs and disadvantages on account of their matrimonial status.” 68. Applying these principles to the present case, I do not regard convicted prisoners serving their sentence as in a comparable position either to free persons or to remand prisoners awaiting trial. They have a very different status, to which it is evident that very different considerations may apply and which are capable at least of giving rise to very different arguments. It follows that, assuming that the general principle of non-discrimination applies under European Union law to eligibility to vote in European Parliamentary elections, there is in my view no basis for its application in the context of a complaint that convicted prisoners are discriminated against by reference to free persons or remand prisoners. The position assuming contrary conclusions 69. I have concluded that the appellants are not entitled to invoke European law, because, firstly, it confers no individual right by reference to which the Strasbourg case-law of Hirst (No 2) and Scoppola could be relevant (paras 58 and 59) and, secondly, the general principle of non-discrimination recognised in Eman and Sevinger is not engaged (paras 63-64) or, if it is engaged, does not assist the appellants (para 68). In what follows, I will, for completeness, consider the position assuming opposite conclusions on all these points. 70. If European law recognises an individual right to vote in European Parliamentary and/or municipal elections, I would reject Mr Southey’s submission that it would or might go further than the Strasbourg case-law in allowing convicted prisoners the vote. Court of Justice jurisprudence pays close attention to and, with very few exceptions, follows Strasbourg jurisprudence. Examples of divergence are few and far between, although one may, ironically, have occurred in a sequel to Eman and Sevinger concerning the right to vote in elections for the Kingdom of Holland, in so far as it is arguable that the Strasbourg court went less far in Sevinger and Eman v Netherlands (2007) 46 EHRR 179 than the Court of Justice did in Eman and Sevinger itself: see an instructive case-note by Professor Leonard F M Besselink on this Strasbourg authority in (2008) 45 CMLR 787. In the present case, I reject in particular the submission that the Court of Justice might return to the theme - suggested in Frodl v Austria (2010) 52 EHRR 267, para 34 by reference to Hirst (No 2), para 82 – that it is essential that any disenfranchisement of a convicted prisoner be ordered on a case by case basis by a judge, rather than be pre-determined by an otherwise appropriate legislative scheme. This suggestion was very clearly, and for very obvious reasons, rejected by the Grand Chamber in Scoppola v Italy, paras 99-100, a rejection which the simple Chamber in Anchugov, para 107, took pains to reiterate; see also (though Page 36