ARM-2007-2-004
a) Armenia / b) Constitutional Court / c) / d) 29-06-2007 / e) DCC-704 / f) On challenging the 18-A decision of 17 May 2007 of the Territorial Electoral Commission N36 on "The Election of the Deputies of the Republic of Armenia National Assembly under Majoritarian System in Constituency N 36 / g) Tegekagir (Official Gazette) / h) CODICES (English).
Keywords of the Systematic Thesaurus:
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Institutions - Elections and instruments of direct democracy - Competent body for the organisation and control of voting. |
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Institutions - Elections and instruments of direct democracy - Determination of votes - Counting of votes. |
Keywords of the alphabetical index:
Election, proportional representation / Election, majority required / Election, vote count, irregularities / Election, Electoral Commission, composition.
Headnotes:
An Electoral Commission member cannot be a candidate for deputy nominated by a political party for the "proportional system", even though he or she is not in a partisan relationship with the persons nominated as candidates for deputy under the "majoritarian system".
Summary:
I. The applicant contended that a candidate for election as deputy of the National Assembly, Territorial Electoral Commission N 36, made an unlawful decision, and there were sufficient grounds to invalidate the results of the election. The applicant had calculated the number of discrepancies in Constituency N 36 to be 9632. Under paragraph 1, part 5 of Article 116 of the Election Code, this constituted grounds to invalidate the election, because this level of discrepancy predominated over the difference between the votes cast for the two candidates who received the maximum number of votes.
The applicant also argued that Sanasar Voskanyan was engaged as a commission member in Territorial Electoral Commission N 32. At the same time, he was a candidate for election as deputy, nominated by "Azgayin Miabanutyun" (National Unity) party for the proportional system, and was respectively included in the party's candidate list. There was a breach of Article 34.4 of the Election Code.
II. The Constitutional Court held that the Precinct Electoral Commissions provided the proxies of the candidates with copies of protocols with incomplete data, rather than excerpts from protocols, as provided by the Electoral Code. The applicant had tried to count the discrepancies on the basis of these copies, which was practically impossible.
By examining information collected from the initial data of the voting results, the receipts of ballots and envelopes as distributed to the precincts, and the administrative registers from several precincts, the Constitutional Court was able to assess the true situation of the discrepancies in those precincts that had attracted the applicant's particular attention, and the Constituency as a whole.
The Constitutional Court held that, under the system of calculation set out in the law, the total number of discrepancies from all precincts of Constituency N 36 was 364. This was 3.2 times less than the difference in the votes cast for the candidates who took first and second places under the "majoritarian system" in that particular Constituency and 2.3 times less than the difference between the votes of the candidates who took the third and the second places.
The Constitutional Court upheld the applicant's argument that, in precinct N36/32, Sanasar Voskanyan was engaged as a Commission member, and at the same time was a candidate for election as a deputy, nominated by the "Azgayin Miabanutyun" party for the proportional system. Irrespective of the fact that this person was not in a partisan relationship with the persons nominated as candidates for deputy under the majoritarian system, the Constitutional Court held that the inadequate control exercised by TEC N 36 had resulted in a breach of Article 34.4 of the Election Code. This provides that, inter alia, a candidate for deputy cannot be a Commission member either. In the meantime, even if the TEC overturned the voting results in that precinct, in that case considering also the requirement of Article 40.13 of the Election Code, this could not be sufficient ground to make another decision on the election results on the basis stipulated by Article 116 of the Code.
The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia decided to leave Decision no. 18-A of 17 May 2007 of the Territorial Electoral Commission N 36 on the Election of Deputies of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia under the Majoritarian System in Constituency N36 in force.
Armenian.