The Constitutional Court ruled awhile ago (more precisely, during Cerar’s government) that the Act on the Determination of Constituencies for the Election of Deputies is unconstitutional because the districts differ too much from each other. Parliament needs to eliminate the unconstitutionality within two years, but only the current government of Janez Janša has dared to deal with the matter and propose the necessary changes, unlike the previous governments.
Minister of the Interior, Aleš Hojs, informed the public that, in addition to changes to constituencies at the state level, minor changes to electoral legislation for municipalities were being prepared at the request of the Constitutional Court. He wrote that he had officially proposed that the part dealing with eligible voters is changed so that only citizens of the Republic of Slovenia are eligible to vote.
In 2018, during the government of Miro Cerar, the Constitutional Court ruled that the Act on the Determination of Constituencies for the Election of Deputies is unconstitutional because the districts differ too much from each other. Both Cerar’s and Marjan Šarec’s government did not deal with the decision of the Constitutional Court but they both rather postponed it. The government of Janez Janša has now started implementing the court’s decision. As you can see in the photo below, the Constitutional Court marked Article 4 of the Act on the Determination of Constituencies for the Election of Deputies to Parliament as unconstitutional.
Minister Hojs also proposed additional changes to the electoral legislation, which touch on the Local Elections Act, more precisely on the part regarding eligible voters. This law has so far allowed foreigners to vote (this does not include EU citizens who have equal rights to Slovenian citizens under the EU law, but citizens of the former Yugoslav republics who are problematic for Slovenia and Slovenian elections). Minister Hojs suggested that only Slovenian citizens should be eligible to vote.
Article 5 is the problematic article of the Local Elections Act, which Hojs is referring to.
European legislation allows such tightening of requirements fo eligible voters.
