The Supreme Constitutional Court has elaborated on the verdict it issued earlier on Thursday which deemed the Parliamentary Elections Law unconstitutional.
In a statement, the court explained that the amended Article 38 of the Constitutional Declaration, which has been in effect since March, allocated two-thirds of the People’s Assembly seats for list-based candidates, with the remaining third for independent candidates. It noted that the goal of this article was to limit nominations for the list-based seats for partisan runners, while earmarking independent seats for non-partisans, so as to ensure that the assembly represents diverse segments of society.
The court said that in practice, the article contradicted this goal by enabling party candidates to run for the independent seats, thus unfairly giving the advantage to candidates who enjoy the support of their parties over independents who lack that support.
This flaw applies to the whole electoral system based on independent or list-based seats, the court added.
The court said the elections had been run according to legal articles that have since been deemed unconstitutional, thus rendering the whole Parliament void and leading to its removal.
However, the court also stressed that Parliament-issued laws will remain active and applicable despite this ruling, unless any further verdicts deem them unconstitutional.
