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7/17/2020 Ákvarðanir 2016 sem ekki fer milli mála að ótakmörkuð heimild sama kjósanda til að mæla með framboði ﬂeiri en eins forsetaefnis ynni gegn því. Samkvæmt þessu gildir fyrrgreind meginregla eftir eðli máls um forsetakjör og er af þeim sökum hafnað kröfu kæranda um að kjör forseta Íslands, sem fram fór 25. júní 2016, verði ógilt. https://www.haestirettur.is/akvardanir/2016/ 17/17

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In re 2016 Election of President of Iceland

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether the prohibition of voters from signing support petitions for multiple candidates conflicts with Act. No. 36. 1945. Whether the plaintiff has a cause of action before elections take place.

Alleged Acts: In order to ascertain a political nomination, candidates must submit a list of supporters no later than five weeks before the election date. Each voter may only support a single candidate and if there are repeats amongst the lists, the name will be deleted from all impacted lists. However, the legal framework outlining the protocol for the lists does not state that a voter many not support two or more candidates.

Procedural history: The candidate alleges that the deletion of duplicate voters supporting candidates conflicts with Act. No. 36.1945. The Supreme Court of Iceland stated that the court’s authority to review elections processes during Presidential elections results in the annulment of the election as a whole. The candidacy of a particular candidate, was not thus a cause of action until after the date of elections – a date that had not yet taken place. Accordingly, the Supreme Court stated that in order to have a claim against the validity of an election result, the election itself must just take place. The court dismissed the claim. After the election date passed the complaint filed suit again.

Summary: Article 33 of Act no. 24/2000, used for the lists pertaining to parliamentary candidates states that voters may not support two potential candidates and if they no, the name will be void on both lists. Legislative history suggest that this was seen as a novel solution for that particular provision. However, no similar provision exists for the presidential lists. The court stated that the rule of barring multiple voter supporters complies with the first paragraph of the Act and is not in conflict with Article 5 of the Icelandic Constitution.

Conclusion: The court rejected the petition and did not declare the Presidential election invalid.

Legal Issue(s)

Candidate Registration
Civil Procedure

Applicable Law(s): Act. no. 36.1945

Region: Europe and Eurasia

Country: Iceland

Language of Decision

Icelandic

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: Presidential

Date of decision: Jun 15, 2016

Geolocation

Latitude: 64.15553467352068

Longitude: -22.015410714605547

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

Ákvarðanir 2016.pdf
Swedish
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Election Judgments - IFES

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In re 2016 Election of President of Iceland

Primary Documents

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