Moldovan top court rules in favour of referendum to amend Constitution

Chisinau, 10 November /MOLDPRES/- The Constitutional Court (CC) today ruled in favour of a referendum to amend the Constitution, and thus, withdraw parliamentary immunity, reduce the number of MPs from 101 to 71, as well as to elect and dismiss the president by popular vote.

Touching upon the amendment of the Constitution, CC chairman Alexandru Tanase, said “besides ruling in favour of this draft, the CC clarified matters related to the organisation of such a referendum, thus ruling that the parliament will only have the technical duty to set up the date and allot financial means needed to carry out the event”.

The chairman of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), Iurie Ciocan, added that “CEC has already started the examination of this draft, and its members will come up with an answer 15 days from the moment of application. Subsequently, CEC will register a group of initiative and will issue subscription lists and identification cards to persons in charge of collecting signatures from citizens.”

The procedure sees that 20,000 signatures from at least one half of the entire number of territorial administrative units are to be collected within 2-3 months.

If signatures, their number and their collection methods are valid, CEC will approve the initiative and submit it to the parliament, which will set up a date for the referendum.

The CC ruling is final and cannot be appealed. It shall enter into force upon its adoption date and shall be published in Moldova’s Official Journal.

On 5 November, a group of initiative submitted the CEC a draft providing for the amendment of the Constitution.

(Reporter A. Plitoc, Editor A. Raileanu)