The paper deals with restrictions of right to vote guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights. It demonstrates that although the original intention of member states was not to include an individual right to vote in the Convention, the European Court of Human Rights has established the right through its case-law and significantly advanced the gradual trend of enfranchising groups traditionally excluded from elections.
Based on the most striking line of jurisprudence which concerns prisoners' voting the author argues, however, that the Court has partly stepped back from this trend recently.