About: Sauvé v Canada (Chief Electoral Officer)

Sauvé v Canada (Chief Electoral Officer), [2002] 3 SCR 519 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision where the Court held that prisoners have a right to vote under section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court overturned the prior decision of the Federal Court of Appeal and held that section 51(e) of the old Canada Elections Act, which prohibited prisoners serving a sentence of over two years from voting, was unconstitutional. Section 51(e) had been repealed before the date of the Court's judgment, but the decision applied equally to section 4(c) of the new statute, which was substantially the same. The Court ruled that the provision violated section 3 of the Charter and was not a reasonable limit under section 1.