The European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that in the case of Georgios Papadopoulos v. Cyprus that there had been a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections) to the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case, a Courts press release says, concerned the fact that Cypriot law did not provide for the possibility to fill a parliamentary seat that had become vacant before the start of the parliamentary term. The applicant in the case was a runner-up candidate in the 2016 parliamentary elections, but was appointed when a member of the European Parliament decided not to take up her seat before the start of the parliamentary term. The applicant’s appointment was however annulled in 2017, 2018 and 2020 because the Electoral Court considered that there was no legal or permissible constitutional framework for such substitution.
The applicant, Georgios Papadopoulos, is a Cypriot national who was born in 1965 and lives in Limassol (Cyprus). He was a runner-up candidate in the 2016 parliamentary elections for the Solidarity Movement.
A Member of the European Parliament – and president of the Solidarity Movement – was elected but she decided not to take the seat prior to the start of the parliamentary term because she wished to remain an MEP.
The Cypriot legal system did not, however, expressly regulate this contingency, that is to say when an elected candidate renounced their seat prior to taking office.
Papadopoulos complained that despite being appointed three times, the Electoral Court had annulled his mandate each time, in breach of his right to stand for election and the electorate’s right to choose the legislature.
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 21 April 2021. Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges.
“The authorities’ failure to effectively resolve this gap or to provide a lawful alternative, whether through legislative or judicial intervention, had ultimately frustrated the choice of the people as expressed in May 2016” the decision says.
The Court found that there had been an interference with the applicant’s rights that had not been ‘lawful’, in violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
The Court held that Cyprus was to pay the applicant 8,000 euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage.