03 März 2022
Three Constituent Peoples and “the Others”
This fall, presidential and general elections are supposed to take place in crisis-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina. Already in 2009, the electoral system in force and its approach of ethnic representation was found to be discriminatory in terms of the ECHR by the Strasbourg court’s famous Sejdić and Finci decision. Without necessary amendments to the Constitution and the Election Act, the country now risks facing an electoral boycott or entering an election process contrary to the ECHR for the fourth time in a row. Continue reading >>
0 
16 Dezember 2021
Chekhov’s Gun
On 9 November, the Fidesz-majority in the parliament passed an amendment on the registration of permanent addresses in Hungary, which allows to register a permanent address without actually living there. In addition, creating a fictional address will no longer be a punishable crime, as the parliament also modified the Penal Code by deleting this specific case from the provisions of document falsification. This legislative step opens the floodgates of voter tourism for the Spring parliamentary elections creating legal but unfair and undemocratic possibilities for winning the most competitive Single Member Districts. Continue reading >>
0
20 Februar 2021
Better Late than Never
On 2 February 2021, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic repealed several crucial provisions of the electoral law. This decision is surprising since all of the previous petitions to repeal the electoral law were rejected by the Court for either procedural reasons or for manifest unfoundedness. The decision also presents a fairly active and, perhaps, unfortunately timed intervention of the judicial branch into the current political reality in the Czech Republic nine months before the upcoming election. Continue reading >>
0
22 Juni 2017
Das italienische Wahlrecht nach deutscher Art reformieren – oder nicht?
Das deutsche Wahlsystem soll Vorbild sein für die Reform des Wahlrechts in Italien. Was hat es mit diesem Vorbildcharakter auf sich, und wie passt das deutsche personalisierte Verhältniswahlrecht zu den Vorgaben der italienischen Verfassung? Continue reading >>28 Februar 2017
Halving the „Italicum“: The Italian Constitutional Court and the Reform of the Electoral System
The Italian electoral system is currently hotly debated. With the so called "Italicum" former PM Renzi had introduced a fundamental reform. After the 2016 Referendum on it, the Constitutional Court now literally cut the law in half. Continue reading >>
0