Oct 14 - GSD Says Government Should Consult The Community On Voting Age Reduction
The GSD has said that, while it is not in principle against the idea of reducing the voting age from 18 to 16 years, it believes that the proposal should be the “subject of considered debate and consultation” amongst the wider community before it is acted upon.
The GSD stresses that community consultation is all the more necessary given that this initiative was not the policy of the parties in Government at the last election, did not feature in their manifesto “and therefore the Government cannot claim to have a mandate to change the voting age without considering the views of the community.”
The Opposition believes that consulting the community would also be consistent with the way the Government dealt with the debate on the reduction of age of consent for homosexuals. It will be recalled, it says, that when the GSD Government brought the Crimes Bill to Parliament in 2011, the GSLP-Liberals did not support it because that Bill sought to reaffirm the Supreme Court’s decision to reduce the age of consent for homosexuals from 18 to 16 and the GSLP-Liberals took the view that the matter should be subject to community-wide consultation. Indeed, when the GSLP-Liberals won the 2011 election they did not commence the operation of the Crimes Act until they had conducted that consultation exercise. The Opposition therefore calls for consistency of approach.
The GSD says that there is also a “lack of clarity” as to whether the Government intends to deal with the voting age in isolation of other age related legal limits or whether this will be part of a package of measures which changes how society views the legal entitlement of 16 and 17 year olds.
The party says that, in his interview on GBC yesterday, the Chief Minister clearly said that he is willing to consider reducing the legal age limits in other areas such as driving. The GSD stresses that these are “very important policy decisions that should not be taken by politicians without public participation,” adding that these issues “raise important questions, which we believe should be debated and considered thoroughly.”
The GSD argues that the “sole driver” for this policy is the Scottish Referendum and asks whether it is what the people of Gibraltar want.
The GSD says that one of the arguments the Chief Minister used yesterday in support of the policy (that 16 year olds can be recruited into the army and be deployed into theatres of war) is incorrect. The UK ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict on 24 June 2003 to ensure that under-18s were not deployed to war zones, according to the GSD. Thus, it says, 16 year olds can be recruited into the army but they cannot be sent to the front line until they are 18 years old. If the Chief Minister can get this basic fact wrong it indicates to us that perhaps not enough thought or debate has gone into the policy decision, says the Opposition.
The Opposition says it will now consider the Government’s decision and also consult the party and members of the public in order to come to a considered view on the matter.
