It must also be borne in mind that courts, including constitutional courts, are characterised by being reactive, not agenda-setting; their power is limited by the fact that they cannot choose their cases. This assumption would be reversed if constitutional courts were given the right to act ex officio and to annul elections on their own initiative – this would be an enormous power for which it would be reasonable to demand a clear legal basis. In the view of the Venice Commission, the power of constitutional courts to invalidate elections ex officio – if any – should be limited to exceptional circumstances and clearly regulated, in order to preserve voters’ confidence in the legitimacy of elections. This exceptional character of the invalidation also applies when the constitutional court has the constitutional mandate to validate elections ex officio, which logically implies the right to invalidate them.