The authorities are to ensure the right to vote of persons with mental disabilities and exclude intimidation. The Penal Code should be supplemented with a new article to punish the intentional hampering of the exercise of the right to vote. Such recommendations were formulated by the Moldovan Institute for Human Rights (IDOM), which monitored voting in the presidential institutions at nine psychiatric institutions.
The recommendations were made after the IDOM observers identified a series of irregularities in the voting process, both in the first round of voting and in the runoff. IDOM executive director Vanu Jereghi, in a news conference at IPN, said the non-inclusion of patients with the right to vote in the electoral rolls is one of the irregularities. In a number of cases, the institution managers invoked the patients’ inability to exercise this right. Also, at some of the institutions, the personnel influenced the voters’ choice.
IDOM monitoring and reporting officer Dumitru Russu said that in Moldova, the Election Code bans the persons declared incompetent from voting. The given norm runs counter to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. However, 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.
Dumitru Russu also said that IDOM recommends ensuring accessible and easily manageable voting materials and staging sessions to simulate voting with the aim of familiarizing the beneficiaries of institutions with the voting stages, etc.
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.
