BREAKING: Presidential elections can be held in September / Constitutional Court rejects USR’s complaint

The presidential elections will be able to be organized in September. The Constitutional Court rejected on Wednesday the complaint by USR regarding the law that was adopted by Parliament in this respect. There is just one more step left for it to come into effect: the promulgation by President Klaus Iohannis.

„In essence, the Court ruled that the criticized law achieves a resizing of the time interval in which the election date is to be set, which does not question a fundamental element of electoral law,” a statement from the Constitutional Court said.

The plenary of the Chamber of Deputies adopted on Tuesday the bill initiated by UDMR and amended by PSD, which provides for changing the date of the elections for the President of Romania. In the form adopted by Parliament and which will go to promulgation, the presidential elections can be organized at the beginning of September.

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Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has already announced that it has been discussed within the coalition that the presidential elections be organized on September 15 – the first round, and September 29 – the second round.

The full statement of the Constitutional Court:

In the session of March 20, 2024, the Constitutional Court, within the a priori constitutionality control, unanimously decided:

• It rejected as unfounded the objection of unconstitutionality raised by deputies belonging to the parliamentary group of the Save Romania Union and unaffiliated deputies and found that the provisions of the Law for amending Article 5(1) of Law No. 370/2004 for the election of the President of Romania are constitutional in relation to the criticisms formulated.

In essence, the Court ruled that the criticized law achieves a resizing of the time interval in which the election date is to be set, which does not question a fundamental element of electoral law.

The Venice Commission observed that there are three categories of systems for determining the election date [Report on the establishment of election dates, adopted by the Council for Democratic Elections at its 22nd meeting (Venice, October 18, 2007) and by the Venice Commission at its 72nd plenary session (Venice, October 19-20, 2007)], with Romania being part of the second system mentioned [the election date is set by an authority, within a time frame strictly determined by the Constitution or electoral law]. The criticized law does not change the existing system of setting the election date but makes a temporal modification within the system chosen by the Romanian legislator since 2004. Placing this date towards the end of the current term is in line with the coordinates of constitutional democracy to ensure the natural succession of terms, without affecting the full character of the current terms. Between the announcement of the elections and the election date, there is a reasonable temporal distance to allow all interested political actors to prepare for the electoral competition.

The Venice Commission [Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters. Guidelines and explanatory report, adopted by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), during its 52nd plenary session (Venice, October 18-19, 2002) and the Interpretative Declaration on the stability of electoral law, adopted by the Council for Democratic Elections at its 15th meeting (Venice, December 15, 2005) and by the Venice Commission at its 65th plenary session (Venice, December 16-17, 2005)] established that the actual electoral system, the composition of electoral commissions, and the establishment of electoral districts are fundamental elements of electoral law and cannot be changed less than 1 year before the election date. The amendment made, extending the time interval in which elections can take place, does not represent a reform of electoral legislation and does not target a fundamental or substantive element of the electoral system.

Consequently, the Court found that the criticized law respects the constitutional requirements invoked.