South African prisoner's right to vote

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dc.contributor.authorPierre, De Vos
dc.date.accessioned2019-12-05T13:26:31Z
dc.date.available2019-12-05T13:26:31Z
dc.date.issued2004
dc.description.abstractThe South African Constitution states that every adult citizen has the right to vote. There has therefore been some legal controversy around the questions of whether it would be unconstitutional to limit the right of any prisoner to cast a vote in national elections. Before the last Parliamentary and Provincial national election in 1999 a group of prisoners challenged and order of the Electoral Commission which excluded all prisoners from voting. In the case of August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others. The Constitutional Court declared this action by the Commission invalid. However, the judgment did not authoritatively answer the question of whether prisoners could be denied the vote because the Court relied on the fact that the Commission had not acted in terms of a law of general limitation and their action could therefore not be constitutionally justified in terms of the limitation clause. When Parliament therefore amended the Electoral Act in 2003 to, in effect, deprive convicted prisoners serving sentences of imprisonment without the option of a fine of the right to participate in elections, it was predictable that the amendments would be challenged in Court. This duly happened and in Minister of Home Affairs v National Institute for Crime Prevention (NICRO) the Constitutional Court declared these amendments invalid. In this addendum I discuss the reasoning employed by the Court in this case, point out that the Court did not shy away from its Constitutional responsibilities to protect the unpopular and marginalised prison population and conclude that the case bodes well for any future prisoner’s rights litigation.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis publication was funded by the Open Society Foundation (OSF) and the Ford Foundation.en_US
dc.identifier.citationde Vos, P. 2004. South African prisoner's right to vote. Research paper. Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative. 1-10en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10566/5096
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherCivil Society Prison Reform Initiativeen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesCSPRI;3 A
dc.subjectSouth Africaen_US
dc.subjectPrisoner's right to voteen_US
dc.subjectLimitation clauseen_US
dc.subjectConstitutional Courten_US
dc.titleSouth African prisoner's right to voteen_US
dc.typeOtheren_US

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