Experts say the urgency of the Russian Federation’s alleged interference is pushing Romanian judges to bypass procedures and avoid transparency in order to save Romanian democracy.
decision Romanian Constitutional Court Two experts told Euronews about last week’s decision that canceling the presidential election was unusual and unprecedented.
The Constitutional Court annulled the election on Friday after declassified intelligence services revealed that Russia had launched a widespread social media campaign to promote Georgescu.
Constitutional judges turned 180 degrees on the issue. The court announced on December 5 that it would examine the issue of annulment of the first round of the presidential election on December 8, the day of the second round. But one days later the Court decided to annul this vote from the second round.
Ioan Stanomir, a constitutional expert and professor at the University of Bucharest, noted that planning a decision after the second round is never a good idea. According to Stanomir, “If Georgescu had won, this would actually have been a violation of the right to vote that all Romanians have.” It is also a “highly unusual” situation for a Court annul the election without any formal complaintAccording to Stanomir.
Although the Constitutional Court acted ex officio in this case and NGOs filed complaints with it, no government agency filed a complaint with the Court. Stanomir stated that the only body that can supervise and annul the presidential election in Romania is the Constitutional Court and that its decision on these issues is final.
“Apparently A very bold interpretation of the powerss (Court); Jan Wouters, professor of EU politics at the Catholic University of Louvain, said about the Court’s decision to annul the ex officio elections:
Wouters notes that in many countries, decisions regarding election integrity will be made by an election commission, and although there is such an authority, the commission’s powers are limited. These are mostly limited to the procedure, logistics and organization of the elections.“I mean, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Stanomir confirmed that the Court took this decision in good faith and in the defense of democracy, but added: “In my humble opinion, the greatest enemy of the Constitutional Court is itself. lack of legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of many Romanians.
Transparency and accountability of the judicial system and the Constitutional Court
“HE The Constitutional Court is full of political appointees“According to Stanomir, who stated that the legitimacy of these decisions will be reinforced by the independence of the Court.
“When he acts as if he has a political master, his degree of legitimacy decreases, and the decrease in legitimacy prevents him from being the guardian of the Constitution as he should be.” The weakness of the judicial system undermines the legitimacy of its actions.
The court cited illegal use of digital technologies, including artificial intelligenceand undeclared sources of funding. Without naming Georgescu, the court said one candidate received “preferential treatment” on social media platforms, which distorted the expressed will of the voters.
The court said that if the Romanian diaspora intervened two days before the end of the election process as they continued to vote abroad, “the reasons for this should be very clear.” Therefore Stanomir said: judges should have stated more clearly the nature of the suspicion of foreign interference by Russia.
“We do not know to what extent the information shared with the court is actually accurate. large enough to justify the cancellation of the elections.. They did not provide any details about what was revealed in these documents. “They spoke only in abstract terms,” he said, adding: “They neglected to be too clear, too direct, too precise, too persuasive in the heat of the moment.”
