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Should Imprisoned Criminals have a Constitutional Right to Vote?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Zdravko Planinc
Zdravko Planinc
Affiliation:
Government Department, Harvard University
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Extract

Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms sets out the democratic rights of Canadian citizens.

Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

Donald Smiley has written that “some of the rights contained in the Charter are stated so explicitly that there is little doubt about their meaning and effect,” and that section 3 is one of the best examples of such clarity. But Smiley was wrong. The “meaning and effect” of section 3 has been thrown into doubt by the question whether its guarantee of the right to vote extends to imprisoned criminals. Newfoundland obviously thinks that it does, for in The Charter of Rights Amendment Act 1985, it repealed the traditional prohibition of prisoner voting. Other jurisdictions have chosen to retain the legal prohibition and to defend it against constitutional challenges mounted by inmates of Canadian prisons. The issue is probably headed for the Supreme Court, which will have to decide whether prisoners are full “citizens” within the meaning of section 3, and, if they are, whether a limit on their right to vote can be justified under section 1 as a “reasonable limit, demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society.”

Type
Comments/Commentaires
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 2 , 1987 , pp. 153 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1987

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References

Notes

1. Smiley, Donald, The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms 1981 (Toronto: Ontario Economic Council, 1981), 40Google Scholar.

2. The Charter of Rights Amendment Act 1985, S.N. 1985, c. 11, s. 69.

3. Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, Laslett, Peter (ed.) (New York: New American Library, 1965), [II. 73, 116-118], 358, 390–392Google Scholar; See also Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, Macpherson, C.B. (ed.) (New York: Penguin, 1979), [I.14], 192–193Google Scholar.

4. Locke, , Two Treatises of Government, [II. 132-3], 399–400Google Scholar.

5. Hobbes, , Leviathan, [I.15], 205Google Scholar.

6. Locke, , Two Treatises of Government, [II.11], 314–315Google Scholar; See also [II.8], 312-313.

7. Ibid., [II.124], 396.

8. Rousseau, Jean Jacques, On the Social Contract, trans. Masters, R.D. and Masters, J.R. (New York: St. Martin's, 1978) [I.1], 46Google Scholar.

9. Ibid., [I.6], 53.

10. Ibid., [III.1], 78.

11. Ibid., [I.7], p. 55; See also Hobbes, , Leviathan, [I. 15], 207Google Scholar.

12. Rousseau, , On the Social Contract, [II. 5], 65Google Scholar.

13. Kant, Immanuel, The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, Part 1 of The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Ladd, John (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1978), 78–79Google Scholar.

14. Ibid., 80.

15. Ibid., 98-99.

16. Ibid., 100.

17. Ibid., 105.

18. Hobbes, , Leviathan, [I. 4, 15], 102, 202Google Scholar.

19. Mill, John Stuart, “Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, Essays on Politics and Society, Volume XIX of The Collected Works of J.S. Mill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 322Google Scholar.

20. Ibid., 322.

21. Ibid., 323-324.

22. Ibid., 322.

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24. Hobbes, , Leviathan, [I.14], 197Google Scholar.

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26. Ibid., [1328b33] 210.

27. Beccaria, Cesare, On Crimes and Punishments, trans. Paolucci, Henry (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), 23, 69Google Scholar.

28. Ibid., 53.

29. Ibid., 53.

30. Ibid., 68.

31. Ibid., 54, 71.

32. Ibid., 72.

33. Ibid., 42-43.

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35. Beccaria, , On Crimes and Punishments, 72Google Scholar.

36. de Montesquieu, Baron, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Nugent, Thomas (New York: Hafner, 1949), [V. 3], 41Google Scholar.

37. Ibid., [VIII. 2-3; XI. 3], 109-111, 150.

38. Ibid., [XII. 2], 184.

39. Ibid., [VI. 12], 84.