Decision No. 1 of 13 March 2025 on Constitutional Case No. 33/2024

Ruling on five challenges to the 27 October 2024 parliamentary election, brought by 300 members of the 50th and 51st National Assembly from six parliamentary formations and joined as constitutional cases Nos. 33 to 37/2024, the Court declared the election of 16 members of the 51st National Assembly unlawful and ordered the Central Election Commission to redetermine the mandate distribution, while rejecting the requests to declare the election unlawful in its entirety. It found violations in the replacement of polling-station commission members, in the drafting of polling-station protocols (Article 282(2) of the Electoral Code), in the packing of election material (Article 284), in the live video monitoring and recording required by Article 272, in establishing results from paper and machine ballots (Article 206(1) with Article 278(2) and (3)), and in entering the voting data in the protocol (Article 281). A handwriting expertise established that 273 of 287 paper ballots examined from three polling stations had been marked by one or two people rather than by separate voters. The Court also recorded that in over 90 per cent of the re-counted stations where the distribution changed, the change followed from commissions assessing ballot validity contrary to the Code, usually by one or two votes per list. Promulgated in State Gazette No. 22 of 15 March 2025.