Söyler v. Turkey | 2014

End to voting ban for certain types of prisoners

What this case illustrates is that while a domestic parliament can restrict a prisoner’s right to vote, the restriction should not be automatic and should allow discretion.

Human Rights Law Centre’s commentary on the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights

Background

A jailed businessman complained that a ban on prisoners voting in elections violated the European Convention on Human Rights.

Ahmet Söyler realised he was still legally registered to vote not long after he started an almost five-year prison sentence for committing a financial crime.

Although Ahmet thought his inclusion on the register was possibly due to an error, he wrote to the electoral authorities asking that he be allowed to vote in the 2007 Turkish general election. He cited European Court of Human Rights case-law on prisoners’ voting rights.

But, in response, the authorities told Ahmet he could not vote under Turkish law.

He therefore missed out on the elections.

Even though he was released from prison on probation in 2009 for good behaviour, Ahmet remained unable to vote until the official date of the end of his sentence in 2012. This meant he also missed out on elections in 2011.

Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights

The European court ruled that Turkey’s “automatic and indiscriminate” application of the voting ban violated Ahmet’s electoral rights.

Turkey’s restrictions on prisoners’ voting rights were found to be “harsher and more far-reaching” than those of other countries the court had examined.

The court also found that the voting ban did not factor in things like the nature or seriousness of the offence committed, the length of the prison sentence or the prisoner’s individual behaviour or circumstances.

In the court’s view, Ahmet’s case “illustrate[d] the indiscriminate application of the restriction”, not least because he had been convicted of a relatively minor offence that no longer carries a prison sentence in Turkey.

Follow-up

In 2015, Turkey’s constitutional court found some of the restrictions on prisoners’ voting rights under the Turkish criminal code to be unlawful.

In 2015 and 2018, Turkey’s electoral authorities decided that certain types of prisoners—including those on remand or on conditional release—could vote in general elections.

Additional information

Themes:

Related examples

End to automatic voting ban for people placed under guardianship

At first, Alajos Kiss did not realise that the situation he was in because of his mental health difficulties meant he had lost the right to vote. The European Court of Human Rights later ruled that Hungary’s blanket voting ban for people placed under partial guardianship was unfair. The Hungarian government responded to the judgment by ending the automatic ban.

Themes: Right to free elections

Hungary

Impact of the European Convention on Human Rights