All prisoners should have voting rights - A debate - Thursday 17th August, Wellington

15 August 2017

Join debaters, comedians and panelists this Thursday evening at 6.30pm to thrash out whether or not prisoners should have the right to vote. Held at Victoria University’s Memorial Theatre, this event is hosted by JustSpeak and MC’d by Jerome Chandrahasen. Locals David Tong, Janaye Henry, Jen O’Sullivan and Matt Powell will join VUW DebSoc in a debate not to be missed.

Following will be a panel discussion with Laura O’Connell-Rapira (ActionStation), Danny Poa (Restorative Justice Facilitator), Chloe Swarbrick (Green Party of Aotearoa), Jack Gradwell (Young New Zealand First) and Mara Davis (Young Labour).

On 23 September everyone over 18 gets to have their say on who our next Government will be. Well, everyone except those sentenced in prison that is. In the lead up to our general election, this timely debate will highlight legislation introduced in 2010 banning voting rights to those who have been sentenced to prison.

Before the passage of the law, the Attorney-General reported to parliament “that the blanket disenfranchisement of prisoners appears to be inconsistent with s12 of the Bill of Rights Act and that it cannot be justified under s5 of that Act”.

This inconsistency has now twice been upheld in the courts, both at the High Court (2015) and the Court of Appeal in May of this year.

“What this legislation says to those serving sentences in our prisons is that they are not a valued part of our society and that they do not have the right to contribute to our democracy” says JustSpeak Director Dr Katie Bruce. “We believe this is unlawful, and so do our Courts.”

“Furthermore, this disproportionately affect Māori who represent over half of our prison population. This is simply unacceptable. We are locking people out of our democracy.” Dr Bruce ends.

Thursday’s event will highlight this issue in the run up to the election and will also be livestreamed through JustSpeakNZ’s facebook page.

ENDS

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