Coalition Enough! succeeded in the Constitutional Court, the elections in the Liberec region will be resolved again

The Stačilo! coalition, which consists of communists and the Czech National Social Party, won 4.99 percent of the vote in the Liberec region. Its representatives challenged the elections at the Regional Court in Liberec, claiming that the votes should be recounted at least in some precincts. They also submitted affidavits of several voters to the court about the commission’s alleged errors in counting the votes.

However, the regional court came to the conclusion that the submitted sworn statements do not represent a sufficiently significant indication that could disprove the presumption of correctness of the announced election results. He also pointed out the essential role of district election commissions in ensuring the legal course of voting and ascertaining election results.

The coalition then turned to the Constitutional Court, and the senate, with judge-rapporteur Tomáš Langášek, heard its arguments.

“The submitted affidavits were a sufficient reason for the review of the electoral documentation from those electoral districts that were directly related to them. And with regard to the low number of votes that were enough for the complainant to overcome the five percent electoral clause, it could not be ruled out in advance that this review could not lead to the acceptance of the electoral complaint,” stated Langášek.

“In the proceedings before the regional court as the electoral court, the applicant presented sufficiently serious evidence capable of rebutting the presumption of correctness of the announced election results. The regional court should therefore have reviewed the election documentation from the five precincts to which this indication was directly related. By not acting in this way, the regional court violated the complainant’s right to judicial protection,” added Langášek.

The case thus returns to the Liberec Regional Court. “The regional court will verify from the election documentation in the five precincts to which the affidavits relate, whether the votes were counted correctly in these precincts. Due to the small difference at the level of the entire region, it is possible that the results from these five precincts will change the overall result,” Judge Langášek told journalists after the meeting.

According to Langášek, the Stačilo! coalition, in case it succeeds in the regional court, could theoretically obtain two mandates at the expense of the Mayors for the Liberecký Region and Spolu. But Langášek emphasized that the Constitutional Court did not perform its own recalculation. The ruling coalition in Liberec has 25 mandates out of 45 in the regional council.

Although the coalition Enough! succeeded, the Constitutional Court stopped short of the part of her argument in which she complained that she was allegedly affected by the decision of the Liberec Regional Court for historical wrongs, with which, according to her claims, she had nothing to do.

“These longings are completely unfounded and out of place, nothing of the sort follows from the contested decision (of the regional court), on the contrary, it is the complainant herself who constructs this unfounded assumption and reminds of the crimes of the ideological predecessor of one of the political parties united in the coalition,” Langášek shot the deputy a stern look coalition and lawyer Sergej Zaripov.

“This finding represents a precedent that allows citizens to control the election results,” commented Zaripov on the Constitutional Court’s resolution.