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Vickie Lee Roach: Legal Case Study

431 Words2 Pages

FORMER delinquent and Aborigine, Vickie Lee Roach, was serving a six-year jail term for the 125 convictions she had between 1976 and 2003, from 23 court appearances. At the time of her arrest in 2002, Roach had alcohol, four types of tranquillisers, morphine and a cannabis-related substance in her blood. In an attempt to escape police by driving at a high speed, Roach hit a stationary car, which went up in flames resulting in a suffering of burns up to 45 per cent of the man in the other cars body. Roach had challenged the validity of the 2006 amendments made to the Electoral Act (1918). The amendments prohibited all prisoners from voting in federal elections. Before the amendment only those prisoners serving a sentence of three years or longer were excluded from voting. Roach launched the case in order to protect the violation of her rights. The right in question was the right to vote, which Ms Roach believed was infringed by the amendments to the Electoral Act. …show more content…

In an application filed with the High Court, Roach's legal team sued the Electoral Commission and the Commonwealth Parliament, arguing that her disqualification from voting violated both S7 and S24 of the Australian Constitution’s requirement that parliament is to be “directly chosen by the people” and the Constitution’s right to political freedom of communication. The High Court believed that the complete ban on prisoners voting was unconstitutional, as it was inconsistent with the principles of representative government. This principle requires that members of parliament are elected into government by the people they seek to represent. Sections 7 and 24 of the Constitution require that ‘Senators’ and members of the ‘House of Representatives’ are directly chosen by the people; therefore there is a right to vote, that had been violated by this legislation. Hence the 2006 amendment was declared to be

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Regardless of her appointment, she was met with heated resistance by her male peers. Her first case was challenged by the defence lawyer claiming she was not a person under the British North America Act of 1867 3. This was due to ambiguous and gendered language in Section 24 of the British North America Act of 1867. The BNA act of 1867, also known as the Constitution Act, were a collection of policies in the Constitution of Canada. Section 24 stated that only “qualified persons” could be appointed to the Canadian Senate5.

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How was the right(s) infringed? Vickie Lee Roach was a prisoner whose ability to vote had been taken away by Commonwealth legislation. She argued that the legislation breached her constitutional rights and argued her case in the High Court. Roach’s disqualification from voting violated both the Australian Constitution’s requirement that parliament be “directly chosen by the people”

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She was to serve a total of 6 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 3 years. Roach overcame her rocky past and became somewhat of a model prisoner, earning a Master's Degree in professional writing. Whilst

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He challenged the law that took away his right to vote while in prison, he argued that s.51(e) of The Canadian Elections Act violated his Charter Rights by excluding every person who is imprisoned in a correctional facility for the commission of any offence. Sauvé claimed that it contradicted s.3 of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly. Sauvé was a citizen and as a citizen under the Charter, he was guaranteed the right to vote.

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Don’t Sleep Through the Amendment Annoyed about the loss of the civil war and hoping to declare continued superiority over the blacks of the South, the Southern states created the poll tax. All who wanted to vote in 1904 Virginia had to pay a tax of a dollar and fifty cents a price about thirty dollars in today’s money. Because of its high price poor whites and most African Americans were not able to vote because they were generally poor. Many saw the injustice of the poll tax and tried to push for its demise. “The poll taxes themselves were at one point ruled not to be unconstitutional in the Breedlove v. Suttles case because it did not violate the provisions set forth by either the Fourteenth Amendment or the Fifteenth Amendment”

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The very Constitution declares that when a government no longer has the safety and rights of their people in mind, then the people should take it upon themselves to abolish it, but women did not have a vote to exercise this right. Similarly, in their article, “Teaching the New Departure: The United States vs. Susan B. Anthony” Kathi Kern and Linda Levstik state,“For Anthony and hundreds of other women in the early years of Reconstruction, “taking” their freedom meant exacting their rights at the point where citizenship was “produced”: the polling booth” (Kern and Levstik 123). Voting was and is an essential part of citizenship in the United States,

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Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 creates a coverage formula for determining which states and political subdivisions will be subject to additional scrutiny. The formula is based on the previous use of racially discriminatory practices and low voter registration or turnout. Section 5 of the Voting Rights act of 1965 holds that no jurisdiction that qualifies under the coverage formula can implement any changes in voting procedures until the changes are approved by the U.S. Justice Department or a federal court. Under Section 5 all states must obtain federal permission before enacting any law related to voting. (Con Law Textbook, pg. 725)

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It wouldn’t be until 1950, nearly 100 years since the first African-Americans were impaneled that women would be given the right to serve on a jury. Although the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 granted women the right to vote; women had to persevere vigorous opposition in order to gain the right to serve in a jury. The majority of the opposition were the same who opposed the women’s suffrage movement claiming that having women serve on a jury was “almost unthinkable” as they felt women were too delicate and to subject them to jury service would pull them away from their household duties. It wasn’t until 1951 that the first two women were impaneled on a jury in Massachusetts, by then there were only 9 states left that wouldn’t allow women to serve on a jury.

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They also sued the U.S. Attorney General for having a permanent injunction against their ability to enforce laws on voting. In 2011, Judge John D. Bates ruled that there was enough evidence to continue with Section 4(b) in place. In 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit ruled that section 4(b) remained constitutional.

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In World War 1 a lot changed for the United States. One things that changed was their foreign policy. We know it changed because they went from a period of isolationism to being involved in world affairs. We are going to look at how the war changed American society, why they entered the war, and the foreign policy change. During World War 1 a lot changed about American society.

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The Supreme Court Of Canada had said the if there were five people acting together could petition they way the laws were governed. So the five women had gotten together and signed the petition for the government to look into if women can be addressed as senators. This case was also known as the “person 's case”. The case was looked at March 14th, 1928 and after it was closed the law was not changed it stood the same which was women were not “qualified persons”.

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In her speech she continues to say, “And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republic government -- the ballot.” (Anthony,1)

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In 1874, Susan B. Anthony wrote a petition to Untied States Congress requesting: “that the fine imposed upon your petitioner be remitted, as an expression of the sense of this high tribunal that her conviction was unjust." (Anthony) Anthony believed the fine $100 USD was unjust because she and her friends were just trying to fight for an amendment that would guarantee women’s voting rights. NWSA kept on with their steps to achieve their goal. In 1878, the Women Suffrage Amendment, later became the Ninth Amendment, had first introduced in the Congress of United States. “Susan B. Anthony: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

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American citizens should not be required to vote, because mandatory voting contradicts the purpose of democracy itself. When you think of democracy, the word freedom will often come to mind. This freedom is linked to a democratic society, and it includes the right to vote, but it also includes the right not to vote or voice opinion. If people were required by law to cast their vote, a great deal of problems would arise that could potentially compromise the foundations of the voting system itself, along with the freedoms that many citizens often take for granted. Although this policy is successful in other countries, compulsory voting in the United States would only be problematic because of the American people 's belief in the freedom to

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