AHC shares the idea that articles 6 and 7 of this guideline are in contradiction with item 4 of the article 29 of the Electoral Code

Tirana, June 8 .2005

To :                  Mr. Ilirjan Celibashi

Head of the Central Electoral Commission

Central Electoral Commission

From:               Ms. Vasilika Hysi

                        Executive Director

                        Albanian Helsinki Committee

                        Tirana

Honorable Mr. Celibashi,

After we got to know the CEC guidelines Nr. 10, dated 13.05.2005, ‘On the collection, administration and publication of information about the vote-counting process on the elections of the Albanian Parliament’ our attention was attracted by the content of articles 6 and 7 that state respectively:

 “After receiving the information from ELC-s, CEC after processing it, makes its dynamic publication at a constituency level. As regards the result of the political parties and/or coalitions, the publication is made at a national level. The publication of the aforementioned information is achieved through the media room, electronically and in a print way and also in the website of CEC.’

Whereas in article 7 of the guideline it is stated: ‘In any case, the published information from CEC is attached to the total number of Polling Stations (PS) in the respective electoral constituency and the number of PS-s on which the given result is estimated.’

From the content of the aforementioned provisions, it comes out that CEC based on the information from ELC-s has the right to publish the election results in its dynamics at a constituency level. This means that CEC based on this guideline is allowed to announce the preliminary election result.

AHC shares the idea that articles 6 and 7 of this guideline are in contradiction with item 4 of the article 29 of the Electoral Code where it is expressively stated that CEC ’announces through a decision, the final result of the elections at a national level, based on the results announced by the ELC-s and after the conclusion of the review of court complaints. The announcement is made not later than 3 days from the date when CEC gets all the official data from the electoral commissions and the judicial decisions according to this Code’

To AHC it is clear that CEC while implementing the law (article 29, item 1 of the Electoral Code) has the right to issue guidelines, but considering that the content of the above provision doesn’t allow for preliminary publications or publications in dynamics either at a constituency level or at a national level.

Respectfully yours,

As  Prof..Dr.Vasilika Hysi

Executive Director