|
Kurt Sansone
Prisoners in Malta, serving a sentence of imprisonment exceeding one year and who, as a consequence cannot vote in any election, could challenge the law banning them from the ballot after judges in Strasbourg ruled that a blanket provision in the UK barring prisoners from voting was in breach of their human rights.
The judgement delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg decreed by 12 votes to five that UK legislation constituted a breach of Article 3 of the convention for human rights which states that countries party to the convention have to hold free elections which will “ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.”
Judge Giovanni Bonello was one of the 12 who found the UK government in breach of prisoners’ human rights.
Malta is a party to the European Convention of Human Rights and judgements delivered by the Strasbourg court also have a bearing on Maltese legislation.
Prisoners in Malta are barred from exercising their right to vote by virtue of Article 58 of the Constitution, which states that a person sentenced for more than 12 months in prison is disqualified from voting.
Legal experts talking to MaltaToday said that if a Maltese prisoner decides to challenge the provision in the Constitution, a Maltese judge would have to take note of the Strasbourg Court’s decision.
But that does not mean a judge cannot deny the right for a prisoner to vote, even if the law is not compatible with the European Court’s judgement – in that case, the refused applicant would have to take up his case to the European Court of Human Rights, with the likeliness that the Maltese court’s judgement would be ultimately overruled.
The case was brought in front of the Strasbourg court by 54-year-old John Hirst while serving a life sentence for manslaughter.
In its opinion, the court insisted that prisoners in general “continue to enjoy all the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed under the Convention save for the right to liberty.”
Although individual states party to the convention can impose certain limitations on the right to vote for prisoners, the court said that “the severe measure of disenfranchisement must, however, not be undertaken lightly and the principle of proportionality requires a discernible and sufficient link between the sanction and the conduct and circumstances of the individual concerned.”
|
