Previous 9 / 9 Next

4.A________ D____ D______. Cu drept de apel în termen de 48 de ore de la pronunțare. Cererea de apel se depune la Tribunalul Bistrița-Năsăud. Pronunțată azi, 26.10.2020, ora 13:00, prin punerea soluției la dispoziția părților prin mijlocirea grefei instanței. Președinte, Grefier, J________ A_______ H_____ V______ Red/Dact JA/HV 27.10.2020 Acest document este preluat și procesat de o aplicație realizată gratuit de Wolters Kluwer Romania (http://www.wolterskluwer.ro/) pentru Fundatia RoLII (http://www.rolii.ro/). Conținutul său poate fi preluat și utilizat cu citarea sursei: www.rolii.ro (http://www.rolii.ro/)

Select target paragraph3

● ● ●

Decision 378/2020

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether the Bistrita Năsăud Electoral Bureau (BECJ BN)’s decision to reject the registration of appellant electoral alliance USR-PLUS’s list of four candidates for the 2020 parliamentary elections was incorrect even though the appellant did not properly include the candidates’ genders, as is required by law for Chamber of Deputies and Senate elections.

Alleged Acts: Appellant alleges that BECJ BN illegally rejected the list of candidates submitted by the appellant for the 2020 parliamentary elections.

Procedural history: BECJ BN rejected the list of candidates submitted by the appellant USR-PLUS for the 2020 parliamentary elections via a vote of six to five, with three judges voting to validate the lists. USR-PLUS appealed the decision to the Bistrita Năsăud Tribunal. The appellant requested that the tribunal annul the contested decision by the BECJ BN and force the BECJ BN to issue a new decision validating the proposed candidates.

Summary: The appellant submitted candidate lists to the BECJ BN for the Chamber of Deputies and Senate races during the 2020 parliamentary elections in the Bistrita Năsăud constituency. The list for the Chamber of Deputies included women (2 out of 6 candidates), while the list for the Senate included only men; according to the appellant, only men expressed interest in running for the Senate. The appellant argued that the rejection, based on BECJ BN’s erroneous interpretation of Article 52 of Law 208/2015, is unfounded and not legal, and notes that two candidates withdrew from the race voluntarily, while the appellant excluded one candidate. On October 24, 2020, the appellant requested that the BECJ BN reassess its amended list, which contained only one candidate and therefore did not have to adhere to the gender percentage laws. However, the representative of the Public Ministry, arguing on behalf of the BECJ BN, claimed that the rejection of the lists followed the requirements outlined in Article 52 of Law 208/2015 and any submission of new lists by appellant should have been done before a decision of BECJ BN. The Tribunal found for the appellant. First, the Tribunal held that Article 52, Paragraph 2 of Law 208/2015 states that lists for the election of senators and lists for the election of deputies should be considered as one list for the purposes of gender representation. Therefore, a separate interpretation of the law cannot be made for each list individually. In its decision, the Tribunal emphasizes how the BECJ BN’s interpretation of the law is contradictory to the Constitution, Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 3 of Protocol I of the ECHR Convention, as it denies four citizens the right to stand as candidates in an election. The Tribunal notes that USR-PLUS has internal mechanisms to boost the participation of women: however, only men showed interest in candidatures and forcing women to run would have denied the right of four citizens to run in elections. The Tribunal notes that Article 52 of Law 208/2015 should be used only by those whose rights are violated. In the current case, there were no female candidates and therefore no one’s rights had been violated. Therefore, the BECJ BN’s decision undermines the general constitutional rights of the other candidates to be elected. The Tribunal also holds that the law should be applied consistently throughout the country. In similar cases, the party lists have been validated, which is what should happen here. The Tribunal also criticizes BECJ BN’s lack of action regarding the appellant’s request to reconsider the list with one candidate. The Tribunal holds that the BECJ BN’s decision is unsubstantiated and not legal.

Conclusion: The Tribunal admitted the appeal and mandated the BECJ BN to accept the appellant’s list of candidatures. The Tribunal discarded the subsidiary request to validate the list with a single candidate because the request could not be admitted directly through appeal since the candidates’ withdrawals and exclusions had to be brought before the Bistrita Năsăud County Constituency Electoral Board.

Legal Issue(s)

Candidate Registration
Gender

Applicable Law(s): Constitution of Romania; Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Article 3 of Protocol I of the ECHR Convention; Article 52 of Law 208/2015

Region: Europe and Eurasia

Country: Romania

Language of Decision

Romanian

Court: Trial Court

Election Type: Parliamentary

Date of decision: Oct 26, 2020

Geolocation

Latitude: 44.537959227049136

Longitude: 26.114780251651226

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

378_2020 contestatie la legea electorala.pdf
Romanian/Moldavian
Download View

Election Judgments - IFES

Select target paragraph3

Decision 378/2020

Primary Documents

Notifications