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How about air-conditioned cells for prisoners while we are
about getting them the vote?
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
The Supreme
Court, following the Constitution, has ruled that remand and
convicted prisoners can vote; thus repealing PNDC Law 284 which
has so far barred them from voting.
This ruling makes it possible for prisoners who want to
“exercise their franchise” to vote. There are more than 13,000
citizens incarcerated currently; meaning, soon, they will all be
added to the voters’ register.
Nothing wrong with allowing a few miscreants to exercise their
civil rights, except, of all the abuses suffered during the PNDC
era, for a legal system to go for the right for jailbirds to
vote shows a paucity of some sort in our civil and legal
courage.
There may be generosity of the human spirit in the Court’s
decision for convicts to participate in governance; the laws of
which they have abused – some, several times.
But there is something seriously wrong with the decision to
remove a significant barrier that ought to make the prisoner
aware that by his act, he has blocked his own right to
participate as full citizen in governance.
That the Supreme Court, prompted by litigant lawyers, saw this
law as a grievous abuse of the PNDC era to tackle should be
bewilderment in itself. Still, for what reason and purpose -
just so prisoners can vote?
According to the Daily Graphic, the Supreme Court “directed the
Electoral Commission (EC) to come out with a Constitutional
Instrument (CI) to create the legal framework that will
facilitate the inclusion of prisoners in the voters register for
the next general election.”
The doubt is if this ruling is necessary for prisoner
rehabilitation. Yet, it has happened.
Two legal practitioners belonging to the Centre for Human Rights
and Civil (CHURCIL), Messrs A. Ocansey and K. Graham, have made
this possible. In an application filed on behalf of the remand
and convicted, they asked the court “to declare as null and void
sections of PNDC Law 284 which barred remand and convicted
prisoners from voting,” as reported by the Daily Graphic.
The Court could have made its ruling narrow by applying the
voting right only to those on remand or yet to be convicted. The
lawyers could have brought to the Court a case for ruling that
required three full meals a day for prisoners. Or, that the
convicted should serve their prison term before they could
exercise the right to vote. The legal options to pursue
prisoners’ civil rights escape me.
But, you must know by now that I do not understand the need for
the removal of this wall of separation between prisoner and free
citizen’s rights. I would not be alone.
Apparently, the Attorney General’s department also opposed the
idea “on the grounds that the relief sought by the two lawyers
were against the public interest,” again, as reported by the
Daily Graphic.
For me, the exact point of public interest is that the ruling
does damage to the concept of penalty and rehabilitation.
Prisoners may not cause any damage by voting, but after breaking
the law, must they have the same rights like the average
citizen?
Also to the point is the fact that prisoners are not in control
of their situations. In a society where some free citizens can
change their vote on the mere promise of a can of sardine, what
exactly can't warders do to influence the vote of an inmate?
But the Supreme Court, in its reading, has insisted that “The
1992 Constitution, per Article 42, grants all citizens of Ghana
who are 18 years and above and are of sound mind the right to be
registered to enable them to vote in all public elections and
referenda.”
The Constitution, with all due respect in this case, must be
made aware of the difference in privileges a prisoner and a law
abiding citizen must have. Failure to do so may bring
consequences that can haunt all taxpayers in the future.
Clearly, the Constitution’s does insist that all citizens of “18
years … of sound mind” must be allowed to vote. Lunatics in
asylums, also citizens of the same age description, in their
lucid moments, can vote.
But the above should not be the same for the sane and convicted.
His indictment must unhinge him from the right to vote for as
long as he is in the care of the government – outside his own
home and in a certified prison. This civil deprivation must be
part of his punishment and rehabilitation.
The Supreme Court has a different view. In a reply to the
Attorney General's position that prisons are not homes and ought
not be used as residences for voter registration, the Court has
said “it found it extremely difficult to understand what
constitutionally legitimate interest was served by the
non-recognition of the prisons as places of residence for the
purpose of voter registration, even for those who had been
convicted of high crimes such as subversion and high treason,”
according to a Joy–on-Line report.
But what societal interest does it serve for a prisoner to call
his jail home? The Court’s removal of the difference has left a
gaping hole for clever lawyers to make more claims for the
prisoner. So expect other claims.
Since, a prison, by convenient definition is now a home because
the convicted lives there, then why not remove from it the bars
and all the harsh factors that make it less like a home and more
like a prison? So, how about air-conditioned cells while we are
about giving the jailbird his voting right?
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, March 30, 2010
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website,
email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.
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