Coalition urges Czech court to strike down discriminatory voting laws

24 February 2010. Budapest (Hungary) and Prague (Czech Republic). A coalition of international civil society organisations urges the Czech Constitutional Court to strike down laws which deny more than 25,000 adults with disabilities their right to vote.

Today, an international coalition of twenty-five civil society organizations including the Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) intervened in two cases before the Czech Constitutional Court by submitting an amicus curiae brief – or third party intervention – encouraging the Court to strike down laws which prohibit people deprived of legal capacity from voting. According to the Czech Ministry of the Interior, there are 25,386 adults with disabilities in the Czech Republic deprived of their legal capacity and placed under guardianship. As a result, they are prohibited from voting in local, national and European elections.

Mr Tomáš Hlaváč and Mr Jiří Soldán are Czech citizens with diagnoses of mental illness. They have been prohibited from exercising their right to vote because they have been deprived of legal capacity. Through the legal assistance of the Czech organisation the League of Human Rights, they have lodged their cases with the Czech Constitutional Court, which has the power to adjudicate upon the constitutionality of domestic laws.

The amicus curiae brief points out that the Czech Republic ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in September 2009. This Convention sets out the right to vote and stand for election for all persons with disabilities - including people with mental health disabilities and intellectual disabilities – on an equal basis with others.

The amicus curiae brief aims to assist the Constitutional Court in its proper administration of justice by:

  • analysing the common myths and prejudices that votes cast by people with psycho-social (mental health) disabilities or intellectual disabilities are irrational, incompetent or manipulated;
  • providing good practice examples of countries which uphold the right to vote for people with disabilities;
  • setting out the international legal landscape of the right to vote, in particular the explicit provision on the right to vote for persons with disabilities in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and
  • demonstrating how laws which deny a right from a ‘group’ serve no legitimate aim, are disproportionate, and unlawful under the European Convention on Human Rights and subsequently Czech constitutional law.

Emphasising that the right to vote is the foundation of all democratic societies, Oliver Lewis, MDAC’s Executive Director, expressed, “The lingering anachronism of depriving persons with disabilities their right to vote simply on the basis of their status or on the basis of presumed higher levels of irrationality is testament more to history than to logic. The signatories of the amicus curiae brief encourage the Czech Constitutional Court to uphold the right to vote by utilising the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the European Convention on Human Rights.”

To read the amicus curiae brief click here. To see the list of organisations and individuals who signed the amicus curiae brief click here. For more information, contact Jitka Sinecka, MDAC Policy and Advocacy Officer, telephone +361 413 2730, email mdac@mdac.org.

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