Supreme Court Refers Prisoner Voting Issue to Parliament
The Constitutional Review Chamber of the Supreme Court today said that Parliament should decide whether prisoners should have the right to vote in elections.
The announcement on Tuesday is in regard to a complaint by prisoner Romeo Kalda who asked for a ruling on whether the current voting ban on prisoners is constitutional. The Supreme Court found that Kalda had no grounds to lodge the complaint and will not begin an official inquiry.
However, the Supreme Court did comment that sections in election laws forbidding imprisoned citizens from voting at local, Parliament and European Parliament elections may be unconstitutional.
“In fact, the problem of a total ban on prisoner voting has been raised since 2006 by the Supreme Court's chief justice, by the justice chancellor and the foreign and justice ministries,” explained Chief Justice Märt Rask.
In addition to the possibility that the ban is unconstitutional in Estonia, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that a total ban is contrary to Article 3 Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
“The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in a number of cases that legislation which dictates a complete voting ban for the imprisoned is unproportional. We do not have to give all prisoners universal voting rights to escape the principle of unproportionality but similarly to other European states, we have to consider which groups are within their rights to receive universal voting rights and which groups are not,” added Rask.
Rask said that he hopes that, before the Supreme Court is asked to fix the problem, Parliament will iron out the contradictions by repealing certain paragraphs in electoral laws. “It is customary for a state that is governed by rule of law to honor international treaties it has signed,” said the Chief Justice.
The human rights court does allow partial bans – allowing prisoners serving only short terms to vote and banning voting for prisoners who committed certain categories of crimes.
Other European countries where prisoners cannot vote are Austria, Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Russia and the UK. A number of other European countries enforce a partial ban.
