II. Comments on the text of the draft law

A. Basic Principles

Article 9(4) prohibits anyone who has been convicted of a deliberate crime from being nominated or elected as a member of parliament unless their sentence has been expunged. This would deny passive suffrage rights based on a conviction for any deliberate crime, regardless of the nature or severity of the crime committed. The restriction of suffrage rights of general categories of groups of people without consideration to specific facts unique to the person are not in line with good international practice. The denial of suffrage should occur only where a person has been convicted of committing a crime of such a serious nature that forfeiture of political rights is indeed proportionate to the crime committed.[1] Therefore, OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission recommend that this restriction be narrowly defined to apply only to persons convicted of a serious crime.

[1] See, e.g., Paragraph 24 of the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document which provides that “participating States will ensure that the exercise of all the human rights and fundamental freedoms will not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law and are consistent with their obligations under international law”. See also, Paragraph 1.1(d.iv) of Council of Europe, Venice Commission, Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, Guidelines for Elections, (2002), page 8.