On Monday 27 January, Theodoros Rousopoulos, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, asked the Venice Commission to publish an urgent report on the “conditions and legal standards whereby a constitutional court could invalidate elections”.
The request was linked to the second round of the Romanian presidential elections in December being annulled - against a backdrop of accusations of Russian interference via TikTok network in favour of the far-right candidate Călin Georgescu - but the report states that the response was not directly linked to this specific case.
The Venice Commission expresses itself here at a general level, with regard to European and international standards.
According to Council of Europe experts, a constitutional court can only invalidate elections subject to numerous conditions and guarantees corresponding to exceptional circumstances.
A cancellation must be based on a substantiated explanation, relate the facts and prove “serious irregularities”.
Even if it is difficult to prove breaches of the law committed in the context of online campaigns, “decisions must be well-reasoned and made public”, as this is essential for maintaining public confidence in the electoral process.
These must be evidence-based and “must not be based solely on classified intelligence (which may only be used as contextual information), as this would not guarantee the necessary transparency and verifiability”.
Link to the urgent report: https://aeur.eu/f/f9d (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)