Moldovan ACUM bloc's MPs ask top court to give opinion on articles from Constitution

Chisinau, 16 October /MOLDPRES/ - MPs Sergiu Litvinenco, Alexandru Slusari and Vasile Bolea today submitted a notification to the Constitutional Court (CCM). The lawmakers ask the top court to give its opinion on the electoral system on the basis of which the snap parliamentary elections should take place, if they are carried out.     

In the notification, the MPs asked CCM to interpret the Article 72, paragraph 3, of the Constitution, in the context of the amendment of the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence through CCM’s Decision No 11/2019, on the one hand, and cancellation of the mixed electoral system and return to the proportional system, on the other hand.  

„The Constitutional Court is demanded to answer the following question: given that Moldova’s parliament adopted the law according to which the mixed electoral system was cancelled and the proportional electoral system was revived, which entered into force on 17 August 2019 and, at the same time, there is the Constitutional Court’s Decision No 11/2019, on the basis of which electoral system the snap parliamentary elections are to take place, if they are held,” Sergiu Litvinenco has written on his page.  

Litvinenco specified that the notification was necessary, in order to ensure the predictability of the electoral process. “From my point of view, if snap parliamentary polls are held, the proportional electoral system is to be enforced – the only one which is in line with the standards of the Venice Commission and the previous Constitutional Court committed a de jure abuse when it established that, no matter what the parliament decides, the mixed electoral system is to be enforced during eventual snap parliamentary elections,” Litvinenco said.   

The Constitutional Court’s Decision No 11/2019 reads that “the parliament can change the electoral system in shorter time intervals than a full legislative period. The new system cannot be implemented within snap parliamentary elections, but only during ordinary parliamentary polls, on condition that the amendment takes place one year ahead of the polls at the earliest. The often or late change of the norms governing the electoral process can disadvantage the voters, electoral competitors and the parties, and there is the risk of infringing the right to vote and the right to be elected.”