The Venice Commisison has published the final opinion for President Ilir Meta, regarding his decision to repeal the June 30th elections date.
The document says that the President has not followed the constitutional rules for emergency situations.
“It seems that the President’s competence to set the election date should be in full accordance with the Constitutional provisions, which gives this competence to the President in a limited discretion, and that also provides that the President should not go beyond the electoral terms”, the document says.
“The President’s right to postpone or even cancel elections is debatable and cannot be established without a specific legal basis. It is necessary to examine whether such power can be given to him in emergency situations.”
“In response to the request for an opinion made by the Speaker of the Albanian Parliament, the Venice Commission concludes that in absence of a legal provision, the President can only cancel the local elections in an emergency situation. Even then, the president needs the legal basis to postpone elections. ”
“Elections can be postponed only when the situation is classified as state emergency. However, the applicable constitutional rules for emergency situations were not followed in this case and there was no political consensus that would allow for establishing an ad-hoc legal basis.”
“Cancelling the elections also impacts the international human right to vote. The instruments and the application of actus contrarious is prevented by the request of the proportionality in every intervention.”
“The lack of a legal basis and availability of alternatives (postponing elections) under an emergency state, as specified by Article 170 of the Constitution, or resumption of post-election political dialogue, interferes with disproportionate electoral rights”.
“The electoral boycott by the political parties cannot prevent regular elections, even if they represent a large part of the electorate. Otherwise, these parties would have the possibility to block every election.”
“It will be up to the Parliament and the Constitutional Court to determine whether the cancelling of the local elections has been a constitutional violation, and if it is a serious violation”, the opinion concludes.
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