Brussels, 05/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - A member state should be able to ban a citizen from exercising his/her civic rights for life, so long as this ban is not irreversible.
Such is the view of Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalon, who submitted his opinion to the Court of Justice of the EU on Thursday 4 June. The case (C-650/13) relates to a French national who was found guilty in 1988 of murder and who was banned from exercising his civic rights (active and passive voting rights) for life. The French penal code was reformed in 1994 and the automatic and lifelong nature of the ban was removed. Nevertheless, any prisoner banned from exercising his/her civic rights before the reform came into force did not benefit from the change.
The first difficulty to be resolved in this case is whether the Court of Justice is competent to hear it. Criminal law is completely outside the powers of the EU, it goes without saying therefore that it is impossible to rule on the compliance of certain national criminal provisions with the EU Charter of Human Rights, as the French court which referred the matter to the Court asked. However, since any European citizen who is denied the right to vote is unable, as a consequence, to vote in European Parliamentary elections, the Court is in fact competent, concluded Cruz Villalon.
Taking the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as his basis, the Advocate General was of the view that mechanistic and lasting denial of the right to vote would seem to be contrary to the primary content of universal suffrage, though the denial may be legal and proportionate so long as it may be reviewed. It will be for the French court to determine if the possibilities for review are sufficient to ensure that the life ban on exercising civic rights is not irreversibly for life. Account must be taken of the degree of difficulty of the review procedure, the costs that it incurs and the practices of the authorities which decide on its outcome. (Jan Kordys)