But it does mark the court's formal and express finding that Parliament has passed a law that removes a fundamental right - perhaps the most fundamental civil right - from literally thousands of New Zealanders. And it has done so in a way that lacks any measure of rational justification.
Such a declaration really matters a lot. First of all, it marks a real departure from the approach that New Zealand courts traditionally take towards Parliament.
Judges will usually say that their job is to just apply the law as Parliament intends it to be. They may on occasion use comments in their judgments to suggest to Parliament that it might wish to reconsider some matter, but in general the courts don't get into the business of assessing the wisdom of parliamentary enactments.
Justice Heath's decision to issue a declaration reverses that position. His honour is unequivocally and explicitly telling Parliament that its 2010 law is a bad one because it fails to meet the standards Parliament itself established when passing the Bill of Rights Act.
Second, this message matters for all of us. His honour is alerting us to the fact that by not meeting these standards, Parliament has failed to do its most important job.
As citizens, we elect members of Parliament to make laws on our behalf. When they do so, we'd like them to put in place the kind of policies that we think are best. That's why we vote for one political party over another.
But we also want all MPs to act as good and trustworthy custodians of the lawmaking powers they've been granted. A part of that is making sure they respect the rights that we all possess, making sure that these are limited only in ways that are reasonable and have been carefully considered.
So when a High Court judge comes out and makes a formal declaration that Parliament has failed to do this, then we really should sit up and pay attention.
It doesn't matter that the rights in question are those of prisoners. That's the thing about rights: either they matter for everyone, or they don't matter at all.
Justice Heath's judgment now poses a challenge to Parliament. Its Justice and Electoral Committee currently is holding an inquiry into the 2014 election. This inquiry inevitably will result in a bill to make some changes to the Electoral Act for the 2017 election.
Will the Government heed the unequivocal message that Heath has delivered and use this bill to reopen the issue of which prisoners ought to be permitted to vote? And do we, as citizens, care enough about our democracy to demand that it do so?
Professor Andrew Geddis teaches at the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago.