Despite the positive trends as regards the right to vote of persons with mental disabilities, in the last presidential elections not all the persons eligible to vote from national psychiatric institutions could exercise this right, ascertained the Moldovan Institute for Human Rights (IDOM), which monitored voting at nine psychiatric hospitals.
In a news conference at IPN, IDOM executive director Vanu Jereghi said the persons with mental disabilities vote either with the mobile ballot box or by travelling to the polling place in the constituency where the institution is located, being assisted by employees. Irregularities were identified in both of the cases.
In a psychiatric institution, almost 90 persons could not vote in the first round of elections. Though there were no court decisions whereby the persons were declared incapable of voting, when they went to the polling place the person responsible for introducing data in the electronic system told them that the program shows these persons have a special status, which is they were declared incompetent. Following notifications, the authorities invoked a technical error and the patients concerned could vote in the presidential runoff. As to voting by the mobile ballot box, Vanu Jereghi said this is usually brought to a psychiatric institution for about an hour and this time may not be enough for all those entitled to be able to vote.
IDOM monitoring and reporting officer Dumitru Russu said the right to vote of the persons declared incompetent should also not be restricted. Though the Election Code bans these persons from voting, the given provision runs counter to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Under Article 4 of the Constitution, if there are disagreements between the pacts and treaties concerning the basic human rights to which Moldova is a party and its internal laws, priority is given to the international regulations.
IDOM has monitored the elections since 2009. The presidential elections of this year were monitored within the project “Monitoring the observance of the electoral rights of residents of psychiatric and psycho-neurological institutions in the Republic of Moldova during the presidential elections of 2016”, which is implemented by IDOM with the financial support of East Europe Foundation.
