Should Voting Rights Be Given To Convicted Prisoners?

But that doesn’t mean the convicted prisoner loses all his rights as soon as he becomes a detainee upon conviction. The court also held that section 3 of the representation of the people act, 1983 stripped the right to vote for a significant number of people and therefore irrespective of how long their imprisonment time is or how serious the crime, it applies to all convicted prisoners. This, according to any reasonable person cannot be said as acceptable or reasonable.
However, in 2011, the Parliament decided that voting rights should not be given to Convicted prisoners despite the ruling given by the ECHR. So, the ECHR said that if there is a “blanket ban” on voting rights to convicted prisoners, then the parliament will be held liable and therefore will have to pay compensation. But the argument given by the parliament was that they had sovereign power and therefore will decide who will vote. As of now, only those who have a short sentence and those who are remanded have a right to vote.
The government
When Human rights are being talked, they play a great importance in any democracy. According to Donnelly, every right of an individual is of the same importance of another individual, and no matter how inhumane they are something that cannot be taken away. When the right to vote is denied to these prisoners, it tends to violate other rights such as the right to freedom of speech and expression or right to equality or even right to dignity. These are human rights and can very much be included in the right to