CONVICTED: Arthur Taylor is a serving prisoner, seen here representing himself at the Auckland High Court in 2011.





Career criminal and jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor is going for his biggest scalp this week - the Prime Minister.



John Key's lawyer Peter Kiely, a partner at Kiely Thompson Caisley, Adjunct Professor of Employment Law at Victoria University of Wellington and Pro Chancellor at the University of Auckland will face Taylor, no formal legal qualifications, over 150 convictions, escaped twice, in the High Court on Tuesday.

Taylor, a serving prisoner, has petitioned the High Court claiming Key's election as MP for Helensville was unlawful because the law had excluded hundreds of potential voters from the electorate - namely, the 650 or so prisoners currently housed in Auckland Prison at Paremoremo."

Key's lawyers deny Taylor's claim and add that Key won the electorate by 18,000 votes over his nearest competitor, the Green Party's Dr Kennedy Graham who received 4,433.



The Prime Minister's lawyer, Peter Kiely, has submitted to the court that even if all 8,727 serving prisoners in New Zealand voted for Graham, "even in this improbable scenario, the respondent would still have won the election with a majority of 9,650 valid votes".

VOTERS: Prime Minister John Key won the Helensville electorate by 18,000 votes over his nearest competitor.

Taylor has challenged the Helensville result on the grounds that the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act 2010 is invalid, that remand prisoners were prevented from registering or voting and that Key "knew and benefited from" social media endorsements on polling day.

He is forging on with his claims despite already being unsuccessful in his challenge to the amendment that took away the right of prisoners to vote.

Justice Rebecca Ellis ruled in September that the amendment was not inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Key's lawyer will argue that Taylor, as a serving prisoner, does not have standing to even make a challenge to an electoral result and that remand prisoners, who are allowed to vote, did vote on polling day.

Evidence would show that 628 of the 856 remand prisoners close to the Helensville area exercised their right to vote.