The Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Bureau has proposed removing the disqualification of prisoners from being registered electors.
Unveiling the results of a consultation exercise on prisoners' right to vote today, Acting Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam said of the 70 submissions received, and opinions voiced in public forums, most called for the removal.
"This is a more lenient approach to deal with the matter taking into account the earlier court judgment on three judicial review cases on prisoners' voting right, policy considerations and public opinions," Mr Tam said.
On the policy options on prisoner voting rights, 49% of submissions wanted prisoners to vote irrespective of their length of sentence, 24% backed removing the disqualification of both prisoners and people convicted of election-related or bribery offences from voting. Only 4% supported disqualifying prisoners based on the length of sentence.
About 57% of interviewees in a survey said prisoners should be allowed to vote irrespective of their length of sentence, but 34% disagreed with giving all prisoners the right to vote.
Views were diverse on whether the disqualification of people convicted of election-related or bribery offences should remain. While many respondents to the survey supported maintaining the restriction a considerable number of submissions wanted to remove it.
No offence restriction
Mr Tam said the key rationale was that voting is a fundamental political right enjoyed by every person. As such convicted people are already penalised for their offences by serving their jail terms, it is unfair to impose an extra penalty by depriving them of their voting right.
"Taking into account the views received during the consultation, and many overseas jurisdictions have no restrictions on prisoners' voting right, we propose to remove the existing disqualification of persons convicted of election-related or bribery offences from voting and from registration as electors," Mr Tam said.
On the voting arrangements for prisoners and remanded unconvicted people, there was general public support for the consultation document proposals, including the registered address of prisoners for voter registration purposes, the access of election-related materials and the arrangements for voting and for vote counting.
The Electoral Affairs Commission will formulate the details of these arrangements with law-enforcement agencies, Mr Tam added.
The bureau will brief the Legislative Council Panel on Constitutional Affairs on the consultation results and the proposed way forward on April 20. It plans to table a bill within the 2008-09 legislative session to amend the disqualification provisions.
The six-week public consultation exercise ended March 23. Click here for the consultation report.
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