RightsBase

A fine tradition of Australian parliamentary democracy — in addition to compulsory voting, long may it last — is the respect given to all prisoners' right to vote.  Perhaps it is a consequence of (white) Australia's penal history that we don't regard prisoners as less than human.  Whatever they may have done, adult prisoners should retain their equal right to direct the political future of their country.

The Howard Government wants to deny prisoners the right to vote in federal elections.  This right is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and, according to Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR), is an implied right in the Australian Constitution.  None the less, the lower house passed the Electoral and Referendum Amendment Bill on 11 May 2006.

Unlike most human rights, the right to vote may lawfully be restricted to (adult) citizens.  The UN Human Rights Committee, which is the highest authority on the interpretation of the ICCPR, deems that states may suspend a citizen's right to vote "on grounds which are established by law and which are objective and reasonable."  A legitimate example they give is "mental incapacity", that is, a person unable to cast a vote meaningfully and responsibly.  There is no a priori reason to suppose that a prisoner cannot vote meaningfully and responsibly.  The Committee makes explicit that to disenfranchise anyone, by policy or practice, on grounds such as physical disability, literacy, education, homelessness or property would be a human rights violation.

The Committee does, however, allow for the suspension by law of convicted prisoners' voting rights (General Comment 25, para. 14).  For a state to do so would be an exception to the norm.  The default expectation of the treaty is that prisoners retain their right to vote.  Offenders, once incarcerated, ought not to be subjected to "any hardship or constraint other than that resulting from the deprivation of liberty."

If we accept the authority of the Human Rights Committee, then (as Australia has by ratifying the ICCPR), a prisoner's right to vote may be suspended by law, but does that make it a good or defensible idea?

ALHR claims there is no evidence that disenfranchising prisoners reduces crime.  On the contrary, removing opportunities to exercise social responsibility and participate in democracy could limit prisoners' rehabilitation.  (Know of any research on the question, dear reader?)  Refusing them the vote would give prisoners the unhelpful message that they are no longer part of society and, moreover, dangerously suggests that human rights are contingent on behaviour.  As long as the racial and socio-economic profile of our prison populations does not reflect society at large, such a step would also discriminate against overrepresented groups such as indigenous Australians.

The hard-won universal right to vote is often undervalued, and for this reason many Australians will care very little about whether prisoners may vote or not.  This aspect of the Coalition's proposed package of electoral reform has received negligible media attention.  But an important point of democracy is at stake and a dangerous precedent threatens.  Democracy — perhaps the greatest achievement of the 20th century — values all citizens equally.  Suffrage should not be restricted to those deemed upright, or to the propertied, or to whites or men . . .

Human rights are inherent and inalienable.  That means we have these entitlements because we are human, and no-one can take them away from us.  Rights can be violated of course, but the right remains, nonetheless.  The whole point about human rights is that they belong to all humans as a birthright, and are not the preserve of the powerful or a privilege of the loyal or virtuous.  They are unconditional, universal.  Yours and mine.

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