Control Over Legality of Parliamentary Elections in a State Governed by the Rule of Law

Abstract

The article examines the genesis of control over the legality of the Saeima (the parliament of the Republic of Latvia) elections, particularly focusing on the judicial review of the Saeima elections. The particularities of the control over elections, which differentiate them from typical administrative legal proceedings, are highlighted in the publication. The article presents findings of the case law regarding the limits of controlling the legality of elections and the cases when the court could revoke a decision by the Central Election Commission on approving the results of the Saeima elections. In view of the fact that sometimes the regulation set out in the Saeima Election Law has been criticised in the Latvian legal science, namely, that the legality of elections is controlled by the Department of Administrative Cases of the Supreme Court’s Senate rather than the Constitutional Court, the authors examine the models of controlling the legality of elections found in various states and provide their assessment of whether the control functions should be transferred into the jurisdiction of the Latvian Constitutional Court.