UK Constitutional Law Association
As in the United Kingdom, the question of whether prisoners should be permitted to vote has generated considerable constitutional interest for New Zealand. Largely that is due to the efforts of a long term prisoner and “jailhouse lawyer”, Arthur Taylor, who has mounted something of a one-man campaign against 2010 legislation that stripped the right to vote from all sentenced prisoners.
In Mr Taylor’s latest sortie, Attorney General v Taylor [2017] NZCA 215, the New Zealand Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision (Taylor v Attorney General [2015] NZHC 1706) to issue the following formal declaration:
Section 80(1)(d) of the Electoral Act 1993 (as amended by the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act 2010) is inconsistent with the right to vote affirmed and guaranteed in s 12(a) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, and cannot be justified under s 5…
View original post 1,816 more words
Recent Comments