The Constitutional Court of Latvia has declared the regulation that prohibits people serving time in prison from voting in municipal elections as unconstitutional, as confirmed by the court.
The one who submitted the application to the court is a prison inmate himself. In accordance to the contested regulation, he was not allowed to vote in the 2021 municipal elections in Latvia.
The person asked the Constitutional Court to review the compliance of Part 2 of Section 6 of the Law on the Election of Local Government Councils to Section 101 of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia.
Section 6 states, among other things, that «persons who are serving a sentence in places of deprivation of liberty» have no right to elect the [municipal] council.
Section 101 of the Constitution, on the other hand, states that «every citizen of Latvia has the right, as provided for by law, to participate in the work of the State and of local government, and to hold a position in the civil service».
The legislator failed to comply with good management principles because they did not take into account the lessons from the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court in regards to the rights of prisoners to vote in elections.
The contested regulation has no legitimate goal in limiting people’s fundamental rights.
If the intended and legitimate goal is making work easier for state administration institutions, the restriction of fundamental rights come off as imbalanced, because the aforementioned goal could instead be accomplished by less restrictive means. Additionally, this restriction of fundamental rights does not bring any benefits to society.
The Constitutional Court concluded that the first sentence of Part 1 of Section 101 regarding guaranteed voting rights plays a decisive role in the creation and preservation of democratically elected institutions guided by the principles of the rule of law. General voting rights are guaranteed in Latvia’s voting system and international law, which is important for every citizen to be able to exercise their right to vote.
Exclusion of any groups of people serving time in prison from elections comes in breach of the general election rights principle.
The Constitutional Court also concluded that the contested regulation automatically takes away the fundamental right – the right to elect municipal council – from a group of people based solely on the fact that these people are serving time in prison. Therefore the legislator has failed to explain the link between taking away voting rights and these people’s committed crime.
The Constitutional Court also mentioned that restricting a person’s right to vote based solely on the fact that the person in question is serving time in prison does not motivate these people to co-participate in civil activities after their release from prison and reintegrate into the society. This general restriction of fundamental rights also does not coordinate well with the goal of the penalty to resocialise the convicted person.
The court also mentioned that any restriction of voting rights should be viewed in the context of the country’s democratic development. This means it is important to periodically consider the need for this restriction and balance it with the degree of social and democratic development at any given moment. The regulation itself and the practice of taking away a person’s fundamental right to vote has not been reviewed at its core since 1994.
Taking all of this into account, the Constitutional Court ruled that the contested regulation’s measure of taking away residents’ voting rights has no legitimate goal and is in breach of the first sentence of Part 2 of Section 101 of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia.
The verdict is final and is not subject to appeal.