The Constitutional Court ruled that the provisions of the law to review to the Constitution’s article concerning the election of the President of the Republic of Moldova by Parliament by the votes of 3/5 of MPs are unconstitutional. In a meeting on March 4, the Court declared the Law on the Election of the Head of Stare unconstitutional and restored the Labor Code provisions on the election of the President by direct vote, by the people, in a move to avoid the legislative vacuum. It took such a decision following a challenge filed by 18 MPs of the Liberal-Democratic parliamentary group, IPN reports.
The Court held that the text of the Constitution not only allows, but even imposes the repeated dissolution of Parliament if this is unable to choose the head of state. Theoretically, the legislative body can be dissolved for the same reason for an indefinite number of times. The Court’s president Alexandru Tanase, making public the decision, said the situation in the Republic of Moldova is unique in this regard and this is due to the amendment of Article 78 of the Constitution in 2000.
Alexandru Tanase noted that these changes generated and continue to generate uncertainty as regards the election of the head of state and the functioning of the constitutional institutions. This fact is confirmed by the numerous requests to interpret Article 78 of the Constitution and by the initiatives to review these amendments. Despite all these efforts, this source of constitutional deadlocks hasn’t been eliminated. Similar concerns were stated by the Venice Commission in its appraisals. “Thus, the Court is put in the situation to eliminate the mechanisms that generate the unbalancing of the constitutional institutions, saving thus the coherence of the Constitution,” said the Court’s president.
The Court stated that the constitutional reform of 2000 actually generated an imperfect system of government that allows for conflicts between the state authorities. Thus, given the imperative of avoiding a legislative vacuum and taking into account the necessity of urgently tackling the constitutional impasse in connection with the approaching expiry of the incumbent President’s tenure, the Court ordered to restore the previous legal mechanism that ensures the election of the President by direct vote, by the people.
The Court also specified that the present decision does not have a retroactive effect and does not refer to the tenure of the current President of the Republic of Moldova. Thus, the President elected by the Parliament’s vote on March 16, 2012 will hold the post until his term in office expires. Also, the present decision does not mean that the documents adopted by the President elected based on the current Article 78 or the person who held the presidency on an interim basis are unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Court’s decision is definitive and cannot be challenged. It takes effect when it is adopted and is published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Moldova.
