Prisoners have right to vote

Prisoners have right to vote

The sentenced prisoners in UK should be given the right to vote. it is unlawful to deprive the prisoners their voting right because people are sent to prison not to loose their identity but their liberty. Prisoners should be allowed to continue enjoying all the fundamental rights and freedom, except for the right to liberty. European court declared the ban on prisoners voting unlawful but the UK government has failed to comply. The court judged that UK was in breach  of Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. A number of official bodies in UK have been advocating on the free right to vote, including the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. on December 2010, the UK government had announced to bring forward legislation to allow those sentenced to custodial sentence  of less than four years the voting right in UK Parliamentary and European Parliament elections. However, a debate was held in the House of Commons on February 2011 and the MPs voted in favor of the motion, supporting the continuation of the ban.

Most European governments believes that all citizens have the right to exercise their civic responsibility but the UK government has been acting contrary to this fact. The Ministry of Justice through its own audit procedures went ahead to seek the prisoners’ voting interest upon which a positive response was received. The ban on prisoners’ right to vote is undermining the principle the principle that in a democracy everybody counts and it does not protect public safety. allowing prisoners to have responsibility in a day to day live behind the bars will encourage a greater sense of autonomy  and will uplift self-respect hence easening decision making by prison managers, according to a report by Prison Reforms Trust.

Enfranchise specified prisoners

Several countries base the enfranchisement on the length of sentence. for example, in Italy the prisoners serving  a sentence of 5 years or more are disqualified from voting. In some other states, the voting right to prisoners is based on the offence committed. The prisoners serving a life sentence face permanent disenfranchisement  while those convicted of petty crimes retain their voting rights. A number of member states within the Council of Europe are considering passing a policy which will allow prisoners sentenced for less than a specified time to retain their right to vote and bar from voting those prisoners with longer sentences.

Under the current UK law, those convicted prisoners found guilty of election offences may automatically lose their voting right during the period they are serving custodial part of their sentence. some of such offences include bribery, treating (both corrupt practices) and tempering with election documents. Depriving such prisoners their voting right will be understood better in all states because of the corrupt practices they committed. The prisoners will be sentenced to a maximum of 6 months imprisonment according to the law or a fine not exceeding £5,000, or both.

Democracy

The right to vote should be afforded to all citizens because it defines a nation as a democracy. All prisoners have the right to equal justice and getting their amendment taken away is completely uncalled for. Restoring the voting rights helps prisoners rejoin their communities and not feel like outsiders. European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have been pressuring the UK government to restore the prisoners their right to vote for many years but nothing has been done so far. The government have a perception that prisoners forfeit their voting right and that disenfranchisement is indeed a necessary and justified expression of punishment. all forms of democratic government are founded upon the right to vote without which democracy cannot exist but UK does not acknowledge this fact.  ECHR is making every reasonable effort to enfranchise. The only prisoners to be disenfranchised are those facing incarceration without the option of fine since they can neither be registered as voters nor exercise the right to vote while incarcerated.

In an attempt to justify disenfranching policy, UK government claims that allowing prisoners to vote will send a message to the public that the government is soft on crime. in response to this, the court said this provides no basis  for depriving prisoners of fundamental rights that they retain despite their incarceration thus the government should not the public misunderstanding their true attitude to crime and criminals.

The government should not act to correct a public misconception about its true attitude to crime and criminal by depriving prisoners of valuable rights that they retain. Simply, this means that disenfranchisement of the targeted group of prisoners is consequently unconstitutional and cannot be justified by the UK government. There is no a rational connection between the government purpose of depriving the convicted prisoners of their voting right and the issue of its true attitude to crime and criminals. All prisoners have the same rights and should be allowed to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly regardless of the offence committed.

Allowing prisoners the right to vote will gain an important means of teaching them democratic values and social responsibility.

Allow prisoners to vote

I believe that prisoners should have the right to vote in all forms of elections. They should be allowed to exercise their voting democratic right because one time they will be out of prison and would like to feel like they made a difference with their votes. When a person’s right to vote is taken, he develops a bad reflection and feel about the government and leaders and they feel as if they are lower than others and thus the government cares little about them. Allowing prisoners to vote helps them to engage with society and become transformed hence making them feel like of a broader community.

The fact is that some civilized Europeans are taking the responsibility of changing the law in favor of the inmates so as allow them exercise the democratic processes of the rule of law. This was witnessed in 2005 when the British prisoners’ rights campaigner John Hirst took to ECHR an appeal demanding for a vote after his first request was rejected in 2001. The British government was supposed to take an action to change that law since they had acted contrary to the Convention. Member state of the Council of Europe are bound by the judgement of the Convention and it works to protect the human rights of all citizens of Council of Europe member states. Although the ban has not been lifted so far, it appears that a change to the law is coming and suffrage will be extended towards some prisoners if not all.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled out that the ban was unlawful and thus UK has a legal obligation to allow some prisoners vote, but the challenge is to decide which inmates would be affected. Judges will have the responsibility of deciding the offences which should carry restrictions to voting rights. Continuing to resist the ECHR ruling will see the government in a worse position since it will have to compensate the prisoners for the damages after allowing them to vote.

Prisoners will remain to be human beings and denying them to vote is an unwarranted infringement upon their fundamental rights which need to be respected. They are taxed on their earnings and savings like any other free citizen and there should be no taxation without representation. They need an opportunity to influence policy formation on all issues that affect the world into which they will be released some day and be free citizens. The only best way for making the prisoners to feel as if they are being reintegrated into the society is by giving them the voting right which will encourage them to take an interest in current affairs. Separating them from their loved ones and restricting their movement is enough punishment to deter them from committing crimes but not by the prospect of banning them from voting.

Banning prisoners from voting does not protect the public and has no positive effect. They are sentenced so as to rehabilitate them and reverse their effect of committing such and other crimes in future.