PRIORITISING PUNISHMENT

In 2018, the removal from serving prisoner of the human right to vote was found by the Supreme Court to breach the Bill of Rights 1990 and just last week, it was also found by the Waitangi Tribunal to be in serious breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Dr Bronwyn Hayward (Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Canterbury): “Voting isn’t just choosing somebody to represent you. it’s actually being part of a society and being able to participate and give something to it and be heard.“

Ex-Inmate 1: “The night before [the 2011 election] we were all getting ready and we were all like, ‘Yeah! We’re voting tomorrow.’ The next morning … we got told, ‘You are not voting.’  I could see the hurt and the pain; … that we were not worthy of anything. How can that be? I know I did a crime, but I wanted to be part of the change.”

Professor Jack Vowles (Professor of Comparative Politics, Victoria University of Wellington): “From a moral point of view you can make the case, ‘These are bad people, they shouldn’t vote.’ But what you’re doing is … making them feel even more apart from society, and potentially making it somewhat more difficult to rehabilitate them when they leave prison.”

Richard François (Human rights barrister): “We are actually talking about a fundamental right which is guaranteed under the Bill of Rights: Every New Zealand citizen who is of or over the age of 18 years: has the right to vote in genuine periodic elections of members of the House of Representatives (Section 12, Bill of Rights Act, 1990).”

Ex-Inmate 2: “I made a mistake. I acted in a way that was wrong. But that’s not who I am as a person.  I was there wanting to get back on track and do the right thing. And one of the first obstacles I come up against … is that I am prevented from being able to vote, from having a say.  I’m being rendered voiceless.“

Tanya Sawicki-Mead: “It it was your brother, or your sister, or your mum who had hurt someone and had ended up in the system, what would you want to happen to them? It wouldn’t be to punish them further. It would be about diverting them out of the system, giving them a chance at a better life, helping them to see where things had gone wrong.”

Awatea: “I get the idea that … you have incarceration or confinement in order to protect the public. But I don’t understand how preventing an incarcerated person from voting is a form of public protection?”

In November 2018, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Justice Minister Andrew Little said the matter was “Not that much of a priority“.  We have yet to see how the government will respond to this latest judicial finding.  Will it move to strike out a pernicious, populist and pointless law?  Or will it continue to prioritise punishment?