More than a year after its submission, the Constitutional Court rejected as inadmissible a complaint of MPs of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists (BCS), who expressed their disagreement over a number of provisions of the Electoral Code. Among the contested norms are those referring to the discretion to organize polling stations for voters from the left bank of the Nistru, but also to the discretion to print ballots in a language other than Romanian, IPN reports.
The complaint was submitted on February 6, 2023 by MPs Grigore Novac and Vasile Bolea. The latter, meanwhile, left the Party of Socialists and joined the group of non-affiliated parliamentarians. The signatories of the complaint didn’t agree with the electoral provisions that give the Central Election Commission the discretionary power to organize or not to organize polling stations for voters from localities situated on the left bank of the Nistru River on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, which is under the constitutional jurisdiction of central public authorities.
In this respect, the Court noted that the right to vote of the electors from the left bank of the Nistru River on the territory controlled by the Moldovan authorities is not affected in any way, given that they effectively have the possibility of being put on the supplementary electoral rolls of the electoral bureau of any polling station on the territory controlled by the official Chisinau.
The authors also challenged the provisions stipulating that ballot papers are drawn up in Romanian language and that, in order to facilitate the participation of ethnic minorities in elections, ballot papers are also drawn up in another language, at the request of electoral bodies in the respective district. They pointed out that the legislation actually provides that the ballots should be printed exclusively in the Romanian language, and that this would lead to the violation of provisions of the Constitution.
According to the Constitutional Court, the rule of drawing up ballot papers in the Romanian language pursues this desideratum, without excluding the possibility of drawing up ballot papers in another language. Thus, the Court held that the impugned article of the Electoral Code does not affect in any way the values protected by the Constitution.
The MPs also challenged the article stipulating that the CEC can request the Public Services Agency to automatically deregister political parties in accordance with the Law on Political Parties. They stated that, according to the constitutional provisions, only the Constitutional Court can rule on the unconstitutionality of a party.
“The Court finds that this statutory provision is a reference rule and it cannot be asserted that it violates the Constitution unless it is shown that the rule to which it refers is unconstitutional. The authors of the complaint didn’t prove that the rule referred to in Article 102 para. (9) of the Electoral Code is unconstitutional,” says the decision.
The Constitutional Court declared the complaint inadmissible. The decision is final, cannot be appealed, enters into force on the date of adoption and is published in the Official Gazette. In this judgment, judges Sergei Țurcan and Vladimir Țurcan formulated separate opinions.
