Being able to vote in elections is an important democratic right, but legislation introduced by the Howard Government in 2006 prevented all people in prison from voting. Prior to the introduction of this law, only people with a sentence of three years or more were penalised.

PROJECT | Dignity for People in Prison

Vickie Roach, an Indigenous woman who was imprisoned at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Melbourne believed Howard’s legislation was inherently wrong and deeply undemocratic. Supported by the Human Rights Law Centre, Vickie launched a constitutional challenge to the legislation. 

In 2007, in Roach v Electoral Commissioner the High Court recognised for the first time that Australia’s Constitution protected the right to vote. In doing so, it struck down a law that denied all prisoners the right to vote. The outcome won the right to vote for nearly 10,000 people in prison at the time. 

On 30 August 2007 in a 4-2 majority decision, the High Court of Australia held that the Constitution does indeed enshrine the right to vote and, moreover, that this right may only be limited for a ‘substantial reason’ and in a way that is ‘appropriate and adapted’ to that reason.   

This important, landmark decision reversed the Federal Government’s 2006 legislation and returned to its previous position of disenfranchising only those prisoners serving sentences of 3 years or more. 

For 8,000 prisoners around the country, the right to political communication and participation, and the opportunity to say, ‘I belong, and I matter’, once again became a reality. 

Vickie Roach is an Indigenous advocate who was imprisoned at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Melbourne.  In challenging the prisoner disenfranchisement legislation, Vickie courageously stood up not just for the human rights of prisoners and Aboriginal people who are overrepresented, but the interests of the entire community in representative democracy and fundamental human rights.