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CAAMAÑO VALLE v. SPAIN JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINION B. The obligation to ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people 12. Turning to the second aspect of the analysis under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, it is necessary to examine to what extent the restriction at issue has a bearing on the “free expression of the opinion of the people”. As is pointed out by the majority, any condition imposed on the individual right to vote “must reflect, or not run counter to, the concern to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of an electoral procedure aimed at identifying the will of the people through universal suffrage (see paragraph 57 of the judgment, with references to the Court’s case-law). The key notion in the text of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 is that of “the opinion of the people”. As I understand that notion, it refers to the opinion, or the diversity of opinions, of the electorate as a whole. Article 3 requires that the electoral system is organised in such a way that the result of the election “fairly faithfully” reflects “the opinions of the people” (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt v. Belgium, 2 March 1987, § 54, Series A no. 113; Yumak and Sadak v. Turkey [GC], no. 10226/03, § 112, ECHR 2008; and Cernea v. Romania, no. 43609/10, § 35, 27 February 2018). The majority translate this requirement into one that concerns the capability of each individual voter to “make a free and self-determined electoral choice” (see paragraph 75 of the judgment). They thus reduce the notion of “opinion of the people” to that of an aggregation of the individual opinions of each voter. In doing so, they in fact return to the question of the justification for the restriction of the individual voters’ right to exercise their right to vote. This concerns the first aspect to be analysed under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (as discussed in paragraphs 3-11 above), and adds nothing to it. The collective dimension of the “opinion of the people” is completely lost. 13. What is required by respect for the “free expression of the opinion of the people” is that the various groups in society, with their different views on how society should be organised and how the benefits and the burdens should be divided among the various categories of citizens, are fairly represented in the body set up to represent “the people” and to take important political decisions. In this respect, I agree with the view of the Commissioner for Human Rights, namely that excluding a large category of persons, such as persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, from the electoral process, not only deprives these persons “of any possibility of influencing the political process and the chance of shaping the policies and measures that directly [affect] their lives”, but also deprives “society as a whole ... of a legislature that [reflects] its full diversity” (see paragraph 47 of the judgment). 33

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Caamaño Valle v. Spain

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether the rescission of voting rights for disabled person under guardianship based on individualized assessment is legal under Article 3, Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Alleged Acts: Applicant, Ms. Caamaño Valle, was the mother of a young woman with an intellectual disability. Around her daughter's 18th birthday, the mother requested that her daughter be placed under her legal guardianship (partial guardianship under Spanish law), but explicitly asked that the daughter not be deprived of her right to vote. Spanish courts placed the daughter under guardianship but also removed her voting rights, finding that she was "highly influenceable and not aware of the consequences of any vote that she might cast." The Spanish courts determined that the daughter lacked sufficient mental capacity to make a free and informed electoral choice, and that allowing her to vote would not serve the purpose of the democratic process.

Procedural history: Mother filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights, alleging that the disenfranchisement violated her daughter's right to vote under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Summary: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in Caamaño Valle v. Spain that Spain did not violate the applicant’s rights under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to vote) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in the case of her daughter, M., who has an intellectual disability.

Conclusion: Spain's disenfranchisement of the applicant's daughter did not violate the European Convention. The judgment upheld the removal of voting rights for a person with an intellectual disability where domestic courts had conducted an individualized assessment and found that the person was incapable of understanding the electoral process and susceptible to undue influence.

Legal Issue(s)

Accessibility

Applicable Law(s): Article 3, Protocol No. 1, and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights

Region: Europe and Eurasia

Country: Spain

Language of Decision

English

Court: Human Rights Court

Election Type: Parliamentary

Date of decision: Aug 11, 2021

Geolocation

Latitude: 48.5964

Longitude: 7.7742

: Geolocation

Link: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-210089%22]}

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CASE OF CAAMAÑO VALLE v. SPAIN.pdf
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Caamaño Valle v. Spain

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