Dominic Grieve to appear before the European court of human rights in Strasbourg to argue his case

The attorney general is appear before the European court of human rights in Strasbourg to argue that English and Welsh courts should have "primary responsibility" in interpreting its laws.

In a speech on Monday, Dominic Grieve QC tried to limit the powers of the human rights court in enforcing those aspects of the European convention of human rights held to be contentious. Grieve's decision to address the grand chamber, the court's upper house, next month on points raised by an Italian case of prisoners' voting rights, indicates that the government will challenge what it perceives as Strasbourg's authority.

But Grieve dismissed any call by rightwingers to withdraw from the convention, stressing that figures such as Winston Churchill were instrumental in its inception in the early 50s.

"The United Kingdom was the first country to ratify the Convention [in 1951]," Grieve said in his speech at Lincoln's Inn, central London. "The United Kingdom will not be the first country to leave the Convention."

Next month the UK takes up the rotating chairmanship of the governing body of the Council of Europe, the body that oversees the convention (under which the human rights court operates). Last week the lord chief justice told the House of Lords that the British courts are not fully bound by decisions of the Strasbourg-based court but must only "take them into account" and is not binding. Precisely what that entails is disputed.

Among recent human rights cases that have caused resentment, particularly among Tory MPs, was the decision that prisoners should be given voting rights. The government has not yet spelled out how it will implement it but has indicated that it will do the minimum necessary.

Grieve said that he wanted to strengthen the principle of subsidiarity, the idea that national jurisdictions should have greater powers to interpret convention rights.

In his speech, Grieve said: "The principle of subsidiarity is that national authorities of member states (that is, their governments, legislatures and courts) have the primary responsibility for guaranteeing and protecting human rights at a national level.

"The principle stresses the subsidiary nature of the supervisory mechanisms established by the convention, including the European Court of Human Rights, in achieving these aims.

"... Of course the United Kingdom should still be subject to the judgments of the Strasbourg court but the court should not normally need to intervene in cases that have already been properly considered by the national courts applying the convention.

"We need clarity. That is why the United Kingdom is intervening in Scoppola [the Italian prisoner voting case] before the Grand Chamber of the European court of human rights.

"I am personally going to Strasbourg to plead the matter on behalf of the United Kingdom.

"I will argue that the principle of subsidiarity requires the court to accept that on issues of social policy such as prisoner voting, where strong, opposing reasonable views may be held and where parliament has fully debated the issue, the judgement as to the appropriate system of disenfranchisement of prisoners is for parliament and the court should not interfere with that judgement unless it is manifestly without reasonable foundation.

"And this is an argument that I would submit really cannot be advanced in respect of our national practice on this issue."

• This article was amended on 25 October 2011 to clarify mentions of "the European court" by changing these to specify the court of human rights.