Information Note on the Court’s case-law 18

May 2000

Moore v. the United Kingdom (dec.) - 37481/97

Decision 30.5.2000 [Section III]

Article 3 of Protocol No. 1

Vote

Impossibility for a long-term psychiatric patient to use either the hospital’s address or his previous address for purposes of registration on the electoral roll: struck out

The applicant has been detained in a psychiatric hospital in Colchester since 1993. Prior to his detention, he was registered on the electoral roll in the Uttlesford area, but claimed that after his release he would go and live in the Colchester area and consequently asked the Colchester authorities to include him in the relevant e lectoral roll. He gave the hospital’s address as his residential address. He was told to contact the Uttlesford authorities as, pursuant to section 7 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, detained patients could not be considered as “resident” at t heir place of detention. The Uttlesford authorities refused to register him on the grounds that he had been detained for more than 6 months outside this area and had not expressed a wish to live there after his release.

A Bill substituting a new section 7 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 has received the Royal Assent. It enables both voluntary and detained mental patient to be registered on the electoral roll in respect of the hospital where they reside. As a consequence, the applicant informed the Court that he did not wish to continue his application. The Court accordingly struck his application out of its list of cases.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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