Right to vote is right, not duty, concur lawyer and political scientist

The right to vote is first and foremost a right and not an obligation, constitutional lawyer Peter Kresak and political scientist Aneta Vilagi from Comenius University in Bratislava concurred.
They drew attention to the negatives of the proposal to reward participation in the September parliamentary election with an amount of €500, which was submitted to Parliament by OLANO leader Igor Matovic.
"As far as I know, according to the opinion of the Venice Commission and the ECHR jurisprudence, participation or non-participation in an election is a free decision of every citizen and as such is part of the protection of privacy as a basic human right. Therefore, monitoring the participation/non-participation of citizens in an election (whether associated with a sanction or with any advantage) can be understood as an inadmissible interference with fundamental rights and freedoms," said Kresak, also hinting at possible indirect corruption in the case of the offered reward given the expectation of the natural human feeling of 'thanking' the one who offered the reward.
Political scientist Vilagi also sees the proposal negatively. "The right to vote is first and foremost a right and not an obligation," she emphasised. According to her, if someone wants to participate in the administration of public affairs, he should have this opportunity, but he shouldn't be required to do so, nor should he be financially motivated. "It's against the spirit of democratic administration," she pointed out. (TASR)