The Supreme Administrative Court on Thursday overruled a lower court, which had sided with an inmate and ordered a voting booth to be set up inside Taipei Prison.
In a press release explaining the ruling, the administrative court said that citizens do not have the legal right to ask electoral bodies to set up polling booths in prisons and that refusal to do so did not cause significant harm to the public good.
The ruling cannot be appealed.
Photo: Taipei Times file
An inmate at the prison, surnamed Lin (林), requested the booth to exercise his right to vote in the presidential and legislative elections in January.
The case began when Lin submitted a request through inmate rights group Prison Watch, asking the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the Taoyuan Election Commission to set up a polling booth at the prison, which despite its name, is in Taoyuan’s Guishan District (龜山), where Lin is serving time.
Lin argued that the installation of a booth fell within his rights as an eligible voter who is unable to leave his place of incarceration to cast a ballot.
In March, the CEC and the Taoyuan commission said that having inmates vote at designated locations in their prison’s municipality fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, which neither commission is directly affiliated with.
Setting up a polling booth in a prison would be like providing absentee ballots or separate voting locations, for which there is no clear precedent or regulations, the two electoral agencies said.
The Taoyuan commission recommended that Lin submit paperwork through other channels to be allowed to exit the prison to vote.
Following the rejection of his request, Lin filed a lawsuit with the Taipei High Administrative Court.
In a decision issued last month, the court sided with Lin, whom it said had not had his voting rights revoked, despite his incarceration.
A process to allow Lin out to vote was unsuitable and it would be more appropriate to install a voting booth in the prison, the court said.
The lack of regulations or precedent to set up a polling booth in a prison was insufficient to deny a citizen their voting rights, it said.
The commissions appealed the ruling, which ordered the Taoyuan agency to set up a polling booth in the prison or find a viable alternative.
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