Many countries do not allow voting rights for prisoners. It is used to be the case in United kingdom as well. Voting rights for sentenced prisoners were banned in 1870 forfeiture act and the same rules were retained in the Representation of the People Act in 1983.
European court of Human Rights(ECHR) in Strasbourg ruled in 2004 that it is illegal to deny human rights including right to vote. ECHR is not related to Europian union but is common judicial agreement between 47 states of the Europe on human rights. The Government of Britain has no easy way to deny ECHR's rule and had been working with appeals and campaigns and delayed implementation for long. Court ruled that prisoners need to get all fundamental rights other than freedom of liberty. It is generally accepted by public that prisoners do not deserve their voting rights. However prison reform groups believe that it is part of rehabilitation and merging felons into main stream. British government finally accepted to lift the ban on prisoners today. It was costing millions of tax payers money in litigation and there is no way to substantiate the ban against all prisoners when prisoners in other countries under ECHR can vote. British Government is exploring the option of absentee voting from prisons. British prisoners barring violent prisoners like murderers and terrorists, will soon get voting rights.
Where are we Indians in voting rights ?
India inherited voting rights laws from Britain and does not allow exercising franchise to prisoners. Now Britian is allowing voting rights for prisoners on the principle that all citizens are entitled to same rights. Will India change laws as well? Perhaps it will in next few decades. Right now, even good citizens like NRIs are denied voting rights in Inida. NRI voting rights bill that is going to be slated to come to Parliament on Nov 9, 2010 only treats NRIs as voters and only works as instruction to election commission to not take away names from the voter list. NRIs have to travel back to their constituencies to vote and that is impractical. There is no absentee voting. When will India provide absentee voting rights for its citizens?
Summary: Government should work ways to provide voting rights to all citizens and not take away rights because of some fears and concerns.
No comments:
Post a Comment