ZAGREB, July 3, 2020 – The GONG election-monitoring NGO asked the Constitutional Court on Friday to oversee the constitutionality and legality of Sunday’s parliamentary election “because persons infected with coronavirus are being deprived of the right to vote.”
GONG submitted its request together with signatures by 179 citizens.
The state has the duty to find a way so that voters with coronavirus vote by prescribing additional epidemiological measures for contact with them on election day, similarly to the measures prescribed for self-isolating voters, GONG said in an explanation of its request.
In a press release, GONG recalled that it had warned in time about the need to introduce postal voting due to coronavirus, “but there has been no political will.”
Now, GONG said, we have a situation in which some voters are deprived of the constitutional right to vote. “Regardless of the number of those infected, regardless of the attempt to downplay the problem… the right to vote does is not taken away.”
GONG said earlier that citizens, notably seniors and those in self-isolation, “must not be forced to falsely choose between health protection and voting rights” and that it was up to the government to hold the election in a way that would not endanger either.
