Criminal Disenfranchisement in an International Perspective

Criminal Disenfranchisement in an International Perspective

Language: English

Pages: 302

ISBN: 0521875617

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


This collection of original essays by leading scholars and advocates offers the first international examination of the nature, causes, and effects of laws regulating voting by people with criminal convictions. In deciding whether prisoners shall retain the right to vote, a country faces vital questions about democratic self-definition and constitutional values - and, increasingly, about the scope of judicial power. Yet in the rich and growing literature on comparative constitutionalism, relatively little attention has been paid to voting rights and election law. Democracy and Punishment begins to fill that gap, showing how constitutional courts in Israel, Canada, South Africa, and Australia, as well as the European Court of Human Rights, have grappled with these policies in the last decade, often citing one another along the way. Chapters analyze partisan politics, political theory, prison administration, and social values, showing that constitutional law is the fruit of political and historical contingency, not just constitutional texts and formal legal doctrine.

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communitarian liberal traditions that seem to undercut the policy’s contemporary rationales (Pettus 2002; Ewald 2002; Manza and Uggen 2004). Here, drawing on authors such as Locke, John Stuart Mill, James Madison, and John Rawls, Manfredi concludes that disenfranchising people convicted of serious crimes is fully consistent with the principles of contemporary liberal democratic philosophy. Manfredi participated in the Sauv´e case, serving alongside other scholars (such as the political

activities in the prison on election day to facilitate the work of the polling clerks.133 The South African Electoral Commission, said the August court, “should have little difficulty in ensuring that those who are eligible to vote are registered and given the opportunity to vote, and that the objective of achieving an easily managed poll on Election Day is accomplished.”134 That prediction appears to Surveys on file with ACLU. French prisoners must make a request, by mail, through a third party

at a 2007 meeting of advocates and affected groups in Florida, there was keen interest in foreign and international human rights law and the policies of other democracies. Although still in its infancy, the use of internationally themed evidence and arguments has fared reasonably well in the United States. The increasing quality and availability of information about prisoner voting policies around the world can only improve the state of the debate here in the United States. Punishment and

or more years was unconstitutional. Second, the Constitutional Court of South Africa addressed the role of economic considerations in examining the constitutionality of prisoner disenfranchisement. In that case, the South African Legislature enacted the Electoral Laws Amendment Act,15 which disenfranchised all prisoners who were imprisoned under sentences that did not have the option of a fine. The Act further disenfranchised prisoners who had been released on election day by preventing them from

directly chosen by the people of the State, voting, until the Parliament otherwise provides, as one electorate,” whereas section 24 states that “The House of Representatives shall be composed of members directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth” (emphases added). If it can be demonstrated that Australian prisoners form part of “the people” referred to in sections 7 and 24, then their right to vote may be guaranteed by the Constitution. Relying on sections 7 and 24 for constitutional

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