Popular Constitution-Making

Abstract

Comments on the Decision of the Supreme Court to invalidate the election to the Constitutional AssemblyThe Supreme Court has handed down a Decision that declares the election to the Constitutional Assembly of 27 November 2010 null and void.It might be anticipated that the Supreme Court would have exercised special care in arriving at such a momentous Decisiona Decision which has the effect of depriving over 83 thousand voters of their democratic right to elect a Constitutional Assembly by a de facto invalidation of their ballots, not to mention the small matter of chucking into the bin the entire expense of organising the election, which reportedly amounted to over ISK 200 million.It therefore came as a surprise to discover that the Decision is not only poorly reasoned, but must be seen as materially wrong in important respects.The purpose of this article is to substantiate this contention.The Decision of the Supreme Court, as published on the Court's website, is some 1100 lines in length, but it is only the last fifth that lays down the reasoning and conclusions of the Court, preceded by a description of the complaints and the facts of the case.That is hardly an extensive discourse considering the implications of the Decision.In its conclusions, the Supreme Court indicates six items that the Court considers to be deficiencies in the conduct of the elections, two of which are considered significant deficiencies; the reasoning concludes as follows: "The above deficiencies in the conduct of the election held on 27 November 2010 to the Constitutional Assembly must be considered collectively, and it is the conclusion of the Supreme Court that because of these deficiencies, there is no alternative but to invalidate the election."This "collective consideration" by the Court is not explained in further detail, and it must therefore be assumed that collectively these six "deficiencies" were sufficient to justify invalidation of the election.We must therefore content ourselves with looking at each item separately, although the last two will be discussed under the same heading.

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