Home > 1.1.3.1 Restrictions to the right to be candidate > UKRAINE - Joint Opinion on the Draft Amendments to the Laws on Election of People's Deputies and on the Central Election Commission and on the Draft Law on Repeat Elections of Ukraine
 
 
 
Download file    
 
 
Paragraph 22
 

III. Comments on the Text on the Draft Electoral Law 


A. Electoral system, suffrage rights and basic principles


Article 9.4 of the parliamentary electoral law prohibits anyone who has been convicted of a “deliberate” crime from being nominated or elected as a member of parliament unless their sentence has been expunged. This provision denies passive suffrage rights based on a conviction for any “deliberate” crime, regardless of the nature or severity of the crime committed. The denial of suffrage should occur only where a person has been convicted of committing a crime of such a serious nature that forfeiture of political rights is indeed proportionate to the crime committed.[1] Therefore, the Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR recommend that this restriction be narrowly defined to apply only to a person convicted of specified crimes that are so serious that forfeiture of suffrage rights satisfies the principle of proportionality.


[1] See Article 25 of the ICCPR and Article 3 of Protocol I to the ECHR. See also judgments of the European Court of Human Righs in Scoppola v. Italy (No. 3) [GC], no. 126/05, 22 May 2012 and Hirst v. The United Kingdom (No.2) [GC], no. 74025/01, 6 October 2005; Paragraph 24 of the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document which provides that “participating States will ensure that the exercise of all the human rights and fundamental freedoms will not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law and are consistent with their obligations under international law”; Paragraph 1.1(d.iv) of Council of Europe, Venice Commission, Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, Guidelines for Elections, (2002), page 8.