The Venice Commission and the Romanian elections

The power of the Constitutional Court to invalidate elections should be clearly stated in law, says the Venice Commission.

Bogdan Matei, 28.01.2025, 14:00

The unprecedented political crisis in Bucharest still creates waves internationally, as the reputed Venice Commission has published a report on the cancellation of the election results in Romania by the country’s Constitutional Court at the end of last year.

In its recommendations, the Commission says that such a decision should not be based solely on classified information that does not guarantee the necessary transparency, but the violations and the evidence should be clearly indicated. Moreover, the power of the Constitutional Court to invalidate elections should be limited to exceptional circumstances and clearly regulated. The independent constitutional law experts also say that proving law violations taking place in online campaigns and on social media is extremely difficult. Finally, the Venice Commission declines its competence to pass a verdict on the decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania to cancel the presidential elections.

In Bucharest, the opposition parties the Alliance for the Union of Romania (AUR), the Save Romania Union (USR) and the Party of Young People (POT) issued an immediate reaction, saying that the Council of Europe’s advisory body in effect confirms that the decision of the Constitutional Court was illegal and abusive.

Tudorel Toader, a former justice minister from the Social Democratic Party (in government together with the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania), says, however, that the Commission’s experts merely expressed an opinion, not a decision, and their suggestions are not mandatory. He did admit that, as a rule, EU member states have adopted the recommendations made in order to comply with the standards of the rule of law.

Held on the established date of 24^th November 2024, the first round of the presidential elections was initially validated by the Constitutional Court of Romania. Later, based on intelligence supplied by the National Supreme Defence Council, the Court moved to annul the entire election process to elect the president. The two candidates in the decisive round, scheduled to take place on 8^th December, were the nationalist independent candidate Călin Georgescu, accused of ties or at least affinities with Putin’s Russia, and the pro-European leader of the Save Romania Union, Elena Lasconi.

In the diaspora, where the Romanians living abroad had started casting their ballots on 6^th December, tens of thousands of people had already voted when the Constitutional Court decided to annul the voting process. The costs of the cancelled elections are believed to amount to some 280 million euros in a country, where, analysts say, the government just took severe measures to cut public spending, sparking vehement trade union protests. On 21^st December, acting president Klaus Iohannis was to end his second term in office, but his stay was extended until the election of a new head of state and its validation by the Constitutional Court.

The new elections are now to be held in May, with the first round on the 4^th and the second on the 18^th. Until then, according to sociological surveys, the trust of Romanian citizens in their institutions and their leaders has eroded to reach minimum levels.