Publication details
Mental Disability and the Right to Vote in Europe: A Few Notes on the Recent Development
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| Year of publication | 2010 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Citation | |
| Description | The right to vote is one of the most fundamental rights in any democratic state. The paper analyses the latest development (both case-law and legislation) in the area of electoral law as regards the right to vote of mentally disabled people. The recent case-law of several constitutional courts (the Czech Constitutional Court, the Slovenian Constitutional Court) as well as of the European Court of Human Rights (Kiss v. Hungary) shows that strict and general restrictions on the right to vote of mentally disabled people may be incompatible with the constitutional principles of electoral law. However, many states still adopt a very strict approach towards the voting right of such groups. The paper evaluates the latest developments in Europe from the point of view of constitutional principles and tries to explain some slight differences between various possible approaches of the legislators and constitutional courts; it further compares the latest developments with the previously existing approach and tries to predict the consequences of these developments. |