South Africa Issue Article- Convict Voting Rights in South Africa

Modern South Africa and the Controversy Over Convict Voting Rights

Should we care about how convicts feel regarding their role in society? Is it important for us to still try and include them as much as possible in the decisions we make as a country, despite their decision to commit a crime? Professors Spates and Carlton recognized in their article concerning South African voting rights, “The right to vote is understood as a basic right of all citizens…” (Spates, Carlton). With that in mind, if we limited convicts from being able to vote, are we trying to send them the message that they aren’t considered citizens?

Since the post-apartheid Constitution of 1994 was created, South Africans have let their understanding of this new democracy guide and help them build a new foundation of knowledge for what rights they have and laws to follow (Convicts). Since then, all South African convicts have been granted the right to vote. Although, there is still a lot of controversy and dispute about whether felons should lose this right, to contribute as part of their punishment for whatever crime they committed. On that note, if South African convicts were to lose their right to vote, the citizen’s understanding of their constitutional democracy would be destroyed. Meaning, if the people were to change one thing in the constitution (such as convict voting rights), it could open a new door that would be used to decide what other rights/laws they would want to reduce, restrict or change (Convicts). Because of this reason, whether South African convicts should be allowed to vote or not remains a strong argument on both sides.

Prisoners are already lacking their natural born rights as it is and are limited on everything they do, granted with the fact that they are in prison for a reason. Nonetheless, on average, South African prisons are 68% overcrowded (Convicts). This means that each right they have the privilege of keeping, significantly impacts their quality of life.

One of South Africans’ fighting reasons why their convicts should be allowed to vote is because it gives them a link to the outside world and ensures that they are still a part of society. Co-founder and project coordinator of the CSPR, Lukas Muntingh, once said, "Inmates remain part of society, although temporarily segregated, and need to be treated as citizens” (Convicts). Lukas is making the point that because all citizens have the right to vote, convicts should have that same right too. However because of their isolation from society, convicts are broken off from the general public and are left behind as their world moves forward making new decisions. Although it is important for convicts to be able to have a say in what developments are made for their country’s future, the government needs to take crime as a serious offense, and enforce certain limits and regulations.

With that in mind, retaining convicts’ right to vote could potentially create a negative image of the government’s attitude towards crime. The media summary of the Constitutional Court in South Africa described, “...the public may misunderstand the government’s true attitude towards crime…”(Constitution). From this perspective, the argument is that if people decide to do something against the law and that results with them being imprisoned, part of their penalty should be losing their right to vote. Otherwise, the idea forms that the government doesn’t take crime as a serious offense, and treats it “softly”.

This brings us back to question whether we should care how convicts see their role in society. Because South African inmates currently do have the right to vote, the only way they will lose this right is if South Africa decides to change its constitution. Yet due to the strong arguments on both sides of the matter and equally wide spread opinion, convict voting rights continue to be a heavily controversial topic to this day.

Works Cited

"In the Constitutional Court of South Africa." Mar. 20014. Web. 8 Mar. 2016.

"Convicts Should Be Allowed to Vote - Opposing Viewpoints in Context." Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

Spates, Kamesha, and Carlton Mathis. "Preserving Dignity: Rethinking Voting Rights for U.S.  Prisoners, Lessons from South Africa." The Journal of Pan African Studies (2014): 16-18. Print.