The Administrative Court has rejected as unfounded two appeals filed by the “Student List – Students Are Winning” electoral list against decisions by the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) concerning voting by Serbian citizens abroad in the parliamentary elections on October 25.
In rulings published on the court’s website, the Administrative Court rejected appeals concerning voting hours for the diaspora and the designation of polling stations abroad.
A ruling issued on October 16 states that RIK correctly applied the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament when it decided that voting at all polling stations abroad would last 13 hours and end no later than 8 p.m. Serbian time.
The court found that the legal provision stipulating that voting must take place continuously from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. cannot be considered separately from the provision authorizing RIK to determine voting hours abroad while taking time zones into account.
The ruling emphasizes that a special regime applies to voting abroad and that previous RIK decisions setting voting hours from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. according to the local time of the host country do not oblige the Commission to follow the same approach in the current electoral process.
The court stated that RIK decisions from 2016, 2017, 2020 and January 2022, which set voting hours according to local time, were not based on the applicable legal provisions. It added that the decisions from March 2022 and November 2023 cannot be considered an established practice that would require an explanation for any departure from it.
In its appeal, the Student List challenged RIK’s decision, arguing that the Commission had failed to apply the law correctly because it had not ensured that voting would take place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time in the countries where polling stations had been designated. It cited Australia, New Zealand, Chicago and New York as examples, where, under RIK’s decision, voting was scheduled to take place during the night as well.
The electoral list asked the court to overturn RIK’s decision and order voting from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time in the host countries, provided that voting ended no later than 8 p.m. Serbian time, or to return the case to the Commission for reconsideration.
The Administrative Court concluded that the arguments presented in the appeal did not warrant a different decision and rejected it. Consequently, it did not consider the request for a ruling under full jurisdiction.
The Administrative Court also rejected an appeal by the “Student List – Students Are Winning” electoral list against a RIK decision dismissing its objection over the failure to designate polling stations in certain foreign cities for the October 25 parliamentary elections.
The ruling issued on October 15 stated that RIK had acted correctly in dismissing the objection because, under the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament, upholding it would have resulted in the annulment of the decision designating polling stations, rather than its amendment and the opening of additional polling stations, which was what the Student List had requested.
In its objection, the Student List pointed out that polling stations had not been designated in several cities, including Manama, Sofia, Santiago, Havana, Doha, Bucharest, Timișoara, Bratislava, Istanbul, Ankara, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. It also argued that polling stations had not been opened in certain cities even though other polling stations existed in the same countries.
The list further stated that the criteria used to assign voters from certain cities to distant polling stations had not been explained, making it more difficult for them to exercise their right to vote and imposing additional financial costs, according to the objection.
The Student List asked RIK to request from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs data on the number of registered voters in each individual city and to use that information to designate additional polling stations wherever the legal requirements were met.
The Administrative Court found that RIK had correctly applied the law, noting that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is legally authorized to propose polling stations abroad and that the Commission had made its decision on the basis of the ministry’s proposal.
The court accepted RIK’s reasoning that regulations do not require voting to be organized at every Serbian diplomatic or consular mission. It also noted that the primary criterion for designating a polling station is the number of registered voters, which must be at least 100 and no more than 2,500 per polling station.
The ruling also pointed out that the legal provision allowing polling stations with fewer than 100 voters to be designated with RIK’s consent applies to polling stations in Serbia, not those abroad.
The Administrative Court concluded that the arguments presented in the appeal did not warrant a different decision and rejected the appeal as unfounded.
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Source: Danas Foto: Nenad Mihajlović/Nova.rs
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