The Supreme Court has overturned a High Court ruling that the State was constitutionally required to provide voting facilities for prisoner Stiofán Breathnach at Wheatfield Prison.
Mr Breathnach was registered to vote in the Dublin City constituency where he ordinarily lived. While serving sentences imposed by the Special Criminal Court, however, he was unable to vote in local, parliamentary or presidential elections or referenda because no arrangements existed for prisoners to vote from custody.
The High Court had declared that this failure unfairly discriminated against him and breached his right to equality before the law under Article 40.1 of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court disagreed.
Chief Justice Keane noted that no legislation disqualified Mr Breathnach from voting. Electoral law specifically treated a person in legal custody as ordinarily resident at the place where they would otherwise have lived. He could therefore remain registered and could vote if, for example, polling day coincided with temporary release.
The issue was whether the Constitution required the State to create additional machinery, such as postal voting or voting within the prison, so that he could exercise the franchise while detained.
The court held that it did not. It relied on earlier decisions concerning voters with disabilities and constitutional rights during imprisonment. Those authorities established that not every inability to exercise a right requires the State to create special facilities, and that some rights may be suspended or incapable of exercise as a consequence of lawful detention.
The court also rejected the equality argument. It held that Article 40.1 permits the State to recognise relevant differences between categories of citizens, including between people lawfully imprisoned following conviction and citizens at liberty.
The ruling settled Mr Breathnach’s claim but did not directly determine the position of remand prisoners, although the judgment observed that lawful detention could also affect their ability to exercise constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court allowed the State’s appeal and dismissed Mr Breathnach’s claim.