Rays of Hope!

There have been heated debates to make voting mandatory In India. Prime time at various channels had animated speakers both for and against the move. The issue had come to the fore as one gentleman Satyaprakash filed in petition in 2015 in Supreme Court of India who wanted mandatory voting to be enforced. Speculations were on that under the name of electoral reforms and having an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha the ruling BJP may get the same enacted and would even get the states involved in passing it. In 2015, the state of Gujarat had made voting mandatory and that too was cited as one of the reasons for making it mandatory for whole of India. Gujarat High Court had given a stay to compulsory voting in local bodies’ election.

Those participating in various debates had their reasons. High Population, low education was some of the deterrents. Giving right to all to cast their vote was a desired objective that various panelist promoted. Reason for not casting the vote, penalty and inability to pay the fine were other points that were thrashed out. BJP ruled Haryana had made it mandatory that those contesting the elections for “Panchayats” would be required to be minimum matriculates and the same was being cited as the a catalyst to encourage the interested law makers. Critics as well as promoters saw the mandatory voting “coming soon”.

This week the NDA government in its response to the Supreme Court, sprung a surprise –a rare pleasant one this time – by stating that exercising one’s franchise is the fundamental right of every citizen but not a duty, and thus ruling out the possibility of making voting compulsory in the country. The Union Ministry of Law and Justice’s which relied on the law commission’s report to counter the petitioner’s demand, stated that making voting compulsory would be undemocratic. Undemocratic in a way that democracy does allow for dissent and compulsory voting could undermine that.

There are only three nations that have enforced compulsory voting-namely Argentina, Belgium and Brazil. Compulsory voting may be able to improve political participation, however research carried out in these countries suggest otherwise. Australia has witnessed what has been named as “Donkey voting”, where voters when forced with compulsory voting- voted for the candidate whose name was on top of the list, thus defeating the very purpose of the compulsory voting. Those not interested in voting, or not fully aware of the various candidates were wasting their votes in order to comply by the law, and thus electing law makers who perhaps didn’t deserve to be there.

For a country like India where literacy rates are low, the compulsory voting may not work on the ground due to practical difficulties.  Moreover a democratic country like India needs to accommodate and diversity of view and it does include the option to disengage and the right to abstain. We do witness that when the elected leaders are called to vote for a bill anywhere in any democratic country. Let the people also have that privilege not to vote if they feel so or are unaware of. India has done fairly well with the introduction of NOTA (None of the above) button on the voting machines where a voter can vote and still express his dissatisfaction with the candidates.

In another development in a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office the Law commission of India has suggested a ceiling on the number of lawyers a department can have. The commission criticized that certain states had crowded their legal department “with acolytes of the ruling party who lack legal merit and cases drag on”. The criticism is justified around 31 million cases are pending in India’s various courts and the in 46 % percent of the cases the government is the litigant. For the counsels appointed by the government, the post comes with all the perks and with nobody to question them. The Commission has desired that there be a model of assessing their performance every six months- Another unexpected development, yet pleasant one which recommends government to cut down its bill on law officers and also can bring down the number of pending litigations.

Supreme Court of India expressed displeasure at the functioning of the Election Commission, and the way Election Commission represented the case, it exemplified the point of Law Commission on the quality of work being done by the government appointed law officers. The SC pulled up the Election Commission for not taking a clear stand on whether lawmakers be barred for life from contesting elections after being convicted in heinous offenses. The law officer representing the case

The bench repeatedly asked the lawyer representing the Election Commission to brief its stand but the lawyer responded saying the commission had not taken stand on the issue. The Election Commission in response to a Public Interest Litigation in its affidavit stated that a special court to decide criminal case related to law makers, public servant and members of judiciary within a year. The Election Commission was reprimanded for not clearly stating its stand on barring lawmakers for life after conviction.  The court took a serious note that if anyone from executive and judiciary, when a person is convicted for any criminal offence, he/she is suspended automatically and debarred from his services for life. This rule, however, is applied differently in case of convicted persons in the legislature.”

All the three cases present a ray of hope, compulsory voting in India may not be enforced soon, the law commission want the law officer to be selected on merit and not on their easy access to the government, and with Supreme Court taking a serious note of the government not doing much for the convicted lawmakers- it does raise a ray of hope.