EU ruling may lift ban on prisoners voting

Convicted criminals serving time in prison may soon be given the right to vote.

Future amendments to the electoral law are likely to bring about changes to the part of the Constitution through which people convicted and serving a sentence of imprisonment exceeding 12 months or who have an operative suspended sentence of 12 months and over, are barred from voting.

Because of the Constitutional provision, the Electoral Commission is informed by the Law Courts whenever there are sentences involving suspended sentences or prison sentences of over 12 months. In the past, political parties have filed applications to strike off such people if their name appeared in the electoral register.

But a recent judgement of the European Courts of Human Rights is likely to change all this.

John Hirst, a Briton who was imprisoned for 25 years for killing his landlady, filed a case before the European Court as the British law, like the Maltese, bans convicted prisoners from voting.

Mr Hirst filed cases about this in the UK, which he lost, but the European Court upheld his case, and this is likely to have repercussions on 14 other countries which are signatories to the European Convention but which still bar prisoners from voting.

The European Court concluded that the right to vote is a basic human right, irrespective of whether one is in prison or not.

Contacted yesterday, the Chief Electoral Commissioner Carmel Degabriele said the Commission has no option but to respect the Constitution, and as the section that disqualifies convicted prisoners is entrenched, it needs a two thirds majority to be changed.

Contacted yesterday, the secretary general of the Nationalist Party Joe Saliba said he had no problem with changes in the electoral law in this respect.

"If it were up to me, I would give them the right to vote. I will not oppose it when the issue comes up for discussion," he said.

MLP secretary general Jason Micallef was unavailable for comment.

The electoral reform is one of the items that will be back on politicians' agenda, probably after the next budget.

Political parties are expected to start having meetings again in a bid to find a solution to the electoral districts as set by the electoral commission in July, and which removed Ghajnsielem and added it to the 12th district.