Home > 6.3 Constitution of the list of candidates > UKRAINE - Opinion on the Amendments to the Law on Elections Regarding the Exclusion of Candidates from Party Lists
 
 
 
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Paragraph 15
 

The adopted Law reinforces even more the party’s control over the parliamentary mandate by allowing to remove a candidate or change his/her ranking on the party list after an election has taken place. The Law goes beyond Article 81: political parties can decide to exclude someone from the list not only if the candidate leaves the party but at their discretion. In its 2009 report on the imperative mandate and similar practices the Venice Commission insisted that such provisions would “[…] give the parties the power to annul electoral results”. Parties are instruments not owners of the social contract between the electors and the parliament. According to a generally accepted principle in modern democracies, the parliamentary mandate belongs to an individual MP, because he/she receives it from voters via universal suffrage and not from a political party. This principle equally applies to candidates on party lists.