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Far from some bold decision in defense of democracy, this is almost a coup by our constitutional court. First, there is no process or even mention in any Roman

Far from some bold decision in defense of democracy, this is almost a coup by our constitutional court. First, there is no process or even mention in any Romanian law about annuling an election. The Constitutional Court of Romania has two specified roles in an election: it validates candidates (or rejects them, as it did with another far right candidate in this very election), and it validates the election results (or invalidates them if there is a significant suspicion of fraud in the vote counts, after a recount). They issued a recount order for this same election as well, and then decided based on the results that the first round was valid. If they had decided it wasn't valid, there are laws for when it would have been repeated. However, they later came back to this decision, and quoting a vague article in the Constitution that says that they assure the electoral procedures are followed, they invented this concept of annuling the entire electoral process, from the very beginning (so even the candidate registrations have to be re-done). Secondly, they did this based on evidence that was public knowledge for two weeks, including the last few times they met and validated the counts. Thirdly, the evidence in question is vague accusations of Russian interference with no specifics. There are no names, no identified groups, no sums of money except for one lump payment by a businessman. The only clear accusation is campaign finance violations (which the authorities had already blatantly ignored, as the candidate in question had registered his campaign costing 0 RON, which was known to the relevant authorities since last month and to the public for two weeks).

nottorp 2y ago
The two ruling parties that are governing in a coalition right now aren't known for either competence or honesty either. Incidentally, their presidential candidates did not make it to the second round of elections. So one can legitimately ask if this is because of the russian interference, or because they want another chance at the presidency?
sebastianz 2y ago
OK, but what could they have done instead? There is a very surprising, out-of-nowhere win by an independent, that declared he spent 0eur on his campaign, as a result of what looks to be a large scale (presumably expensive to run) campaign on TikTok, that nobody knows who financed, which will await trial, commissions and investigations to figure out. What could the court have said when they were prompted? Ignore this? I'm not really a 'Constitutional Court' apologist :). I am genuinely curious... what would have been the alternative here?
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  The court had already validated the first round of elections. This was a fait accompli. They could have let it stand, noting that people had voted and their votes were correctly counted, and that matters more than any other manipulation. Consider we don't have any decision by any court (before this one) that confirms that any illegal action of any kind has taken place. It's only isinuations and beliefs, but nothing proven to the extent required by law. The elections should have been allowed to continue. If needed, some special prosecutor whose independence from the next president, even if CG won, could be guaranteed could be appointed to continue investigating the facts of this campaign. Then, CG could be tried based on the findings, could be suspended by Parliament while this was going on, and he could be deposed if he indeed was found guilty, and new elections held at that time (in Romania, if the president's mandate ends suddenly for any reason, there is a temporary presidency, but only until snap elections are called). Let's not forget that he might not even have won - the race was tight, but not unwinnable. So in that case, he could easily be investigated as a private citizen.
  - sebastianz 2y ago
    But if you believe it is highly likely this would happen (which presumably the CCR do believe, along with various state-defense relevant institutions), how is this whole process you described better than just cancelling them now?
    - tsimionescu 2y ago
      Because it's legal. And what they did now is not legal. They don't even have may proof that anything that happened in the first round campaign was illegal. The CCR is not even qualified to rule on the facts, on the legality of anything that happened. So if nothing illegal is proven by any court to have happened, if there isn't even enough evidence to get a tmeporary arrest warrant in his name in a regular court of law, how can we annul the whole electoral process? The costs alone should require a much higher level of justification. The court has not even ruled that he is not allowed to participate in the re-made elections. I was mortified that he might win, don't get me wrong. My entire family was going to vote for Lasconi, even those that didn't really like her, just to make sure this idiot madman didn't win. But that doesn't make this decision be any closer to the rule of law.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Aloisius 2y ago
How is annulling an election any different from their power to invalidate results? The power cited to ensure election procedure doesn't seem vague. It appears to be quite broad: > The Constitutional Court shall have the following powers: ... (f) to guard the observance of the procedure for the election of the President of Romania and to confirm the ballot returns;
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  For the ballot returns, there is a whole law that details how that process works, what documents are to be sent to the court, who and how and when can contest the results, what happens if the results are annulled and so on. The court can't make up its own rules, there is a whole legislative cadre that specifies their powers, responsibilities, and their interaction with other institutions. They trampled over all of these with this new decision: they didn't observe any time limits (they gave this decision out of the blue, while the voting for the second round had already started; could they have decided this same annulment two months from now? Nothing in this decision or motivation says they couldn't). They met to decide on this matter with no request from everyone, they brought this matter before themselves by their own power, which no court has the power to. They had no legal framework to demand this from any other institution. Worse of all, they have specified no limits to this broad power they have found they have, nor any legal standards for what type of allegations are grave enough to objectively determine this annulment. What if next time a candidate that won 1% of the vote had a suspicious campaign, will that lead to annulment? What is the standard of evidence to be evaluated for this decision? The documents they based this decision on wouldn't even have constituted admissible evidence in a court of law, they are hearsay by institutions which aren't even making them under pain of perjury. And related to that article of the Constitution, there is no reason to interpret it as a broad, decisional power. It is clearly meant to guide law makers to create specific laws for determining the CCR's specific role in the electoral process. There are many similar articles in the constitution about other institutions that don't grant them any direct powers in this way. For example, article 80, title 2 says: > (2) The President of Romania shall guard the observance of the Constitution and the proper functioning of the public authorities. To this effect, he shall act as a mediator between the Powers in the State, as well as between the State and society. If the President took the same approach as the court, it stands to reason that he could go into any public authority in Romania and block their decisions based on finding that they are not properly observing the Constitution, right?
cbg0 2y ago
> First, there is no process or even mention in any Romanian law about annuling an election. This is false. Law 370 20/09/2004: Article 52 (1) The Constitutional Court shall annul an election if the voting and the determination of the results have taken place by fraud of such a nature as to alter the allocation of the mandate or, as the case may be, the order of the candidates eligible to participate in the second round of voting. In such a case, the Court shall order that the second ballot be held on the second Sunday after the date on which the elections are annulled. (2) An application to annul the elections may be filed by political parties, political alliances, electoral alliances, organizations of citizens belonging to national minorities represented in the Council of National Minorities and candidates who participated in the elections, within 3 days after the close of the voting at the latest; the application must be substantiated and accompanied by the evidence on which it is based. (3) The Constitutional Court shall decide on the application by the date stipulated by law for the public announcement of the election results. Article 53 (1) The Constitutional Court shall validate the result of each ballot, ensure the publication of the election result in the mass media and in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, for each ballot and validate the election result for the elected President. (2) The Validation Act shall be drawn up in three copies, one of which shall remain with the Constitutional Court, one of which shall be submitted to Parliament for the taking of the oath provided for in Article 82 para. (2) of the Constitution of Romania, republished, and the third shall be submitted to the elected candidate. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  The articles from 370/2004 that you quoted contradict your thesis. They give the CCR specific power to decide to annul the specific election, and only if they find evidence of vote fraud " if the voting and the determination of the results have taken place by fraud of such a nature as to alter the allocation of the mandate or, as the case may be, the order of the candidates eligible to participate in the second round of voting". The court has already ruled in Tuesday based on this law, and they have explicitly found that no such fraud has taken place, and they have validated the results. And again, this only refers specifically to annuling one election, re-doing it the following Sunday, and only if vote fraud is identified. The court yesterday decided to annull the entire electoral process, and not because of voter fraud, but strictly because of campaign finance violations. There is no such provision in that law or any other. The court did not "order that the second ballot be held on the second Sunday after the date on which the elections are annulled." - they ordered that the Government shall choose a new date, that candidates shall register a new etc. The next election will be, at the earliest, held in late February. Also, article 2 was not followed in any way *. The current decision from the court was not based on any application to annul by any party whatsoever, the court convened of its own volition, based only on the declassified documents that appeared in the public sphere. None of the other articles you quote give any such power. In fact, you'll see that the word "campaign" is not present anywhere in those articles. And yet the Court's decision is entirely based on problems they find related to said campaign. * there was an application by two candidates to annull the first round of elections, those were investigated on Thursday and then Monday last week, and they were rejected. This new decision by the court is unrelated to that.

nottorp 2y ago

The two ruling parties that are governing in a coalition right now aren't known for either competence or honesty either. Incidentally, their presidential candidates did not make it to the second round of elections. So one can legitimately ask if this is because of the russian interference, or because they want another chance at the presidency?

sebastianz 2y ago

OK, but what could they have done instead? There is a very surprising, out-of-nowhere win by an independent, that declared he spent 0eur on his campaign, as a result of what looks to be a large scale (presumably expensive to run) campaign on TikTok, that nobody knows who financed, which will await trial, commissions and investigations to figure out. What could the court have said when they were prompted? Ignore this? I'm not really a 'Constitutional Court' apologist :). I am genuinely curious... what would have been the alternative here?

tsimionescu 2y ago
The court had already validated the first round of elections. This was a fait accompli. They could have let it stand, noting that people had voted and their votes were correctly counted, and that matters more than any other manipulation. Consider we don't have any decision by any court (before this one) that confirms that any illegal action of any kind has taken place. It's only isinuations and beliefs, but nothing proven to the extent required by law. The elections should have been allowed to continue. If needed, some special prosecutor whose independence from the next president, even if CG won, could be guaranteed could be appointed to continue investigating the facts of this campaign. Then, CG could be tried based on the findings, could be suspended by Parliament while this was going on, and he could be deposed if he indeed was found guilty, and new elections held at that time (in Romania, if the president's mandate ends suddenly for any reason, there is a temporary presidency, but only until snap elections are called). Let's not forget that he might not even have won - the race was tight, but not unwinnable. So in that case, he could easily be investigated as a private citizen.
- sebastianz 2y ago
  But if you believe it is highly likely this would happen (which presumably the CCR do believe, along with various state-defense relevant institutions), how is this whole process you described better than just cancelling them now?
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    Because it's legal. And what they did now is not legal. They don't even have may proof that anything that happened in the first round campaign was illegal. The CCR is not even qualified to rule on the facts, on the legality of anything that happened. So if nothing illegal is proven by any court to have happened, if there isn't even enough evidence to get a tmeporary arrest warrant in his name in a regular court of law, how can we annul the whole electoral process? The costs alone should require a much higher level of justification. The court has not even ruled that he is not allowed to participate in the re-made elections. I was mortified that he might win, don't get me wrong. My entire family was going to vote for Lasconi, even those that didn't really like her, just to make sure this idiot madman didn't win. But that doesn't make this decision be any closer to the rule of law.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Aloisius 2y ago

How is annulling an election any different from their power to invalidate results? The power cited to ensure election procedure doesn't seem vague. It appears to be quite broad: > The Constitutional Court shall have the following powers: ... (f) to guard the observance of the procedure for the election of the President of Romania and to confirm the ballot returns;

tsimionescu 2y ago
For the ballot returns, there is a whole law that details how that process works, what documents are to be sent to the court, who and how and when can contest the results, what happens if the results are annulled and so on. The court can't make up its own rules, there is a whole legislative cadre that specifies their powers, responsibilities, and their interaction with other institutions. They trampled over all of these with this new decision: they didn't observe any time limits (they gave this decision out of the blue, while the voting for the second round had already started; could they have decided this same annulment two months from now? Nothing in this decision or motivation says they couldn't). They met to decide on this matter with no request from everyone, they brought this matter before themselves by their own power, which no court has the power to. They had no legal framework to demand this from any other institution. Worse of all, they have specified no limits to this broad power they have found they have, nor any legal standards for what type of allegations are grave enough to objectively determine this annulment. What if next time a candidate that won 1% of the vote had a suspicious campaign, will that lead to annulment? What is the standard of evidence to be evaluated for this decision? The documents they based this decision on wouldn't even have constituted admissible evidence in a court of law, they are hearsay by institutions which aren't even making them under pain of perjury. And related to that article of the Constitution, there is no reason to interpret it as a broad, decisional power. It is clearly meant to guide law makers to create specific laws for determining the CCR's specific role in the electoral process. There are many similar articles in the constitution about other institutions that don't grant them any direct powers in this way. For example, article 80, title 2 says: > (2) The President of Romania shall guard the observance of the Constitution and the proper functioning of the public authorities. To this effect, he shall act as a mediator between the Powers in the State, as well as between the State and society. If the President took the same approach as the court, it stands to reason that he could go into any public authority in Romania and block their decisions based on finding that they are not properly observing the Constitution, right?

cbg0 2y ago

> First, there is no process or even mention in any Romanian law about annuling an election. This is false. Law 370 20/09/2004: Article 52 (1) The Constitutional Court shall annul an election if the voting and the determination of the results have taken place by fraud of such a nature as to alter the allocation of the mandate or, as the case may be, the order of the candidates eligible to participate in the second round of voting. In such a case, the Court shall order that the second ballot be held on the second Sunday after the date on which the elections are annulled. (2) An application to annul the elections may be filed by political parties, political alliances, electoral alliances, organizations of citizens belonging to national minorities represented in the Council of National Minorities and candidates who participated in the elections, within 3 days after the close of the voting at the latest; the application must be substantiated and accompanied by the evidence on which it is based. (3) The Constitutional Court shall decide on the application by the date stipulated by law for the public announcement of the election results. Article 53 (1) The Constitutional Court shall validate the result of each ballot, ensure the publication of the election result in the mass media and in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, for each ballot and validate the election result for the elected President. (2) The Validation Act shall be drawn up in three copies, one of which shall remain with the Constitutional Court, one of which shall be submitted to Parliament for the taking of the oath provided for in Article 82 para. (2) of the Constitution of Romania, republished, and the third shall be submitted to the elected candidate. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

tsimionescu 2y ago
The articles from 370/2004 that you quoted contradict your thesis. They give the CCR specific power to decide to annul the specific election, and only if they find evidence of vote fraud " if the voting and the determination of the results have taken place by fraud of such a nature as to alter the allocation of the mandate or, as the case may be, the order of the candidates eligible to participate in the second round of voting". The court has already ruled in Tuesday based on this law, and they have explicitly found that no such fraud has taken place, and they have validated the results. And again, this only refers specifically to annuling one election, re-doing it the following Sunday, and only if vote fraud is identified. The court yesterday decided to annull the entire electoral process, and not because of voter fraud, but strictly because of campaign finance violations. There is no such provision in that law or any other. The court did not "order that the second ballot be held on the second Sunday after the date on which the elections are annulled." - they ordered that the Government shall choose a new date, that candidates shall register a new etc. The next election will be, at the earliest, held in late February. Also, article 2 was not followed in any way *. The current decision from the court was not based on any application to annul by any party whatsoever, the court convened of its own volition, based only on the declassified documents that appeared in the public sphere. None of the other articles you quote give any such power. In fact, you'll see that the word "campaign" is not present anywhere in those articles. And yet the Court's decision is entirely based on problems they find related to said campaign. * there was an application by two candidates to annull the first round of elections, those were investigated on Thursday and then Monday last week, and they were rejected. This new decision by the court is unrelated to that.