Romania\u2019s Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled by majority vote to invalidate the Government\u2019s emergency decree on modifying the legislation for holding early legislative elections. The Court pointed out that the emergency decree eliminating a restrictive provision, thus allowing people to cast their votes in any polling station irrespective of the constituency they belong to, with the aim of eluding the very principle under which constituencies were created, goes against the Constitution.<\/p>\n
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At the same time the Court ruled that the provisions in the Government\u2019s decree regulating the possibility of holding legislative and local elections simultaneously in 2020 violate citizens\u2019 right to vote, subjecting them to a tedious and complicated voting procedure that would eventually restrain their freedom to express their political will and hence the efficiency of their right to vote. The dispositions are also in breach of people\u2019s right to re-election, as they prevent someone from running for positions in the local administration (mayor, city councilor, county councilor) or in Parliament (deputy or senator).<\/p>\n
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Moreover, the Court also took under advisement the fact that the bill modifying the organization of legislative elections was passed less than a year before the elections were due. Court judges say the Government failed to observe the obligation to refrain from modifying election legislation, as per the recommendations of the Constitutional Court and the Code of good practices in electoral matters released by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission).<\/p>\n
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The Court notes that the Government\u2019s bill infringes on citizens\u2019 election rights, as well as on Parliament\u2019s constitutional remit. The Court\u2019s ruling basically rules out the possibility of holding early elections. Over the three decades that have passed since 1989, Romania has never had snap elections. Under the Constitution, procedures to trigger the elections require the consensus of the majority of political parties. As a result, legislative elections will be held in autumn as scheduled, during which time the Liberals will have to face a hostile Social-Democratic majority. (translated by V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
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The constitutional Court has ruled against the emergency decree sanctioning the organization of early elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":84996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[31651,33570,35223,32209,29386],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-84995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-court","tag-early-elections","tag-govt","tag-liberals","tag-psd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n