Organizations of the civil society ask the Romanian Government to create a committee to monitor the election list updating process

Mr. Prime Minister,

We wish to reiterate here our opinion that a revision of the election lists, by any procedure, may only be done for the future, and cannot be taken into consideration for the recent July 29 referendum, which must be validated or invalidated according to rules in place at the time of the ballot, as underlined by the decision of the Constitutional Court.

But in order to reduce the current state of confusion, to increase public trust and to better manage the post-referendum situation and future election rounds, we ask you to urgently create a monitoring committee to observe the way the lists are updated, as you have just announced.

Such a committee would have to validate the criteria according to which a person may be eliminated from the election lists and certify that these criteria are observed in the updating process, and that no person with a right to vote has been unrightfully taken off the lists.

In order to give credibility to the whole process, and given the fact that the updating of election lists is directly connected to the July 29 referendum, the committee should include the chairwoman of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the chairwoman of the Central Election Bureau, a representative of each parliamentary party, a representative of the suspended President, representatives of competent NGOs and international bodies. This committee should start to operate as soon as next week, given the ambitious calendar you have made public. In the absence of this transparent and verifiable procedure, the whole list revising process risks to lose credibility.

We make an appeal to the political forces in Romania , to understand that only a transparent election list updating process may reestablish the trust of citizens in the fundamental institutions of democracy. In any case, it is an unprecedented situation that EU member state should update its election lists after the ballot.

Thank you

Expert Forum (EFOR)
Freedom House
The Group for Social Dialog (GDS)
The Romanian Center for European Policies (CRPE)
The Center for Independent Journalism (CJI)
The Resource Center for Public Participation (CeRe)
The Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Romanian – the Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH)
ActiveWatch – the Press Monitoring Agency
The Association for Protecting and Documenting Monuments and Heritage (ProDoMo)
Reaching Out