By Maggie Tait
A bill aimed at stripping all prison inmates of the right to vote has been drafted to do the opposite and under it criminals like William Bell, Graeme Burton and Clayton Weatherston would be able to go to the polls, legal expert Andrew Geddis says.
National Party MP Paul Quinn's Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill seeks to prevent all prisoners, even those inside for a short time, from voting.
Under current law prisoners serving a sentence of three years or more are disqualified.
The Human Rights Commission and other organisations condemned the bill during select committee consideration and breached the Bill of Rights.
One submitter said the bill should be changed to allow all prisoners to vote which left ACT MP David Garrett unimpressed.
"Do you believe that people like William Bell and Graeme Burton and those of that ilk should be voting on how the country is run?" he said at the time.
Now it turns out that changes to the bill may do just that.
The select committee has reported the bill back and by majority (National and ACT members) has said it should progress.
Otago University law faculty associate professor Geddis wrote on the Pundit website that the initial bill flowed out of knee-jerk get tough on time rhetoric and the committee did not explain its reasons for supporting it.
"But let's say you are the kind of person who takes it seriously. Clearly, three people who you believe shouldn't get to have a vote are William Bell, Graeme Burton and Clayton Weatherston.
"Well, guess what? If the law and order committee's recommendations to the House get passed into law, these three guys - as well as any other murderer, rapist or violent criminal currently serving a sentence of more than three years - will get to vote at the next election."
He said that was because the committee recommended repealing the current disqualification provision in the Electoral Act 1993, and replacing it with a different provision which actually removed the legislative provision that disqualified people presently serving lengthy prison sentences and instead only disqualified people sentenced to prison after the bill is enacted into law.
"So, there would be nothing in law to stop anyone imprisoned at the time the bill is enacted from applying to be registered to vote, and consequently casting a vote at the 2011 election.
"That's why I called the majority members of the Law and Order committee "dumb". They obviously don't understand what the effect of their recommended amendments would be. How could they have got it so wrong?"
Prof Geddis said the legislation should have gone to Parliament's Electoral Legislation Committee, rather than its law and order committee for consideration.
"The net result is that the law and order committee has just produced a completely nonsensical report, largely because didn't get any help from anyone who knows how our electoral laws actually work.
"So now, if the Government really wants to pass this measure into law, it will have to use a supplementary order paper to undo the total mess its own MPs have created.
"If the matter wasn't so important, it would be funny. But we're dealing with fundamental democratic rights here, so the fact this sort of complete cock-up happened reveals a disgraceful lack of care on the part of our lawmakers."
NZPA