Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 150
March 2012
Sitaropoulos and Giakoumopoulos v. Greece [GC] - 42202/07
Judgment 15.3.2012 [GC]
Article 3 of Protocol No. 1
Free expression of opinion of people
Vote
Lack of legislation covering procedure for Greek nationals resident overseas to vote in parliamentary elections: no violation
Facts – The applicants are two Greek nationals who are permanently resident in Strasbourg (France). In a letter dated 10 September 2007 to the Greek Ambassador in France, they expressed the wish to exercise their voting rights from their country of residence in the parliamentary elections to be held in Greece on 16 September 2007. Two days later the Ambassador replied that their request could not be met because no rules existed laying down the conditions governing the exercise of voting rights by Greek voters who were outside the country. The general election took place and the applicants, who did not travel to Greece, did not exercise their right to vote.
In its judgment of 8 July 2010 (see Information Note no. 132), a Chamber of the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
Law – Article 3 of Protocol No. 1: The applicants complained of the fact that the Greek legislature had not put in place arrangements enabling citizens living abroad to vote in parliamentary elections from their current place of residence. Although provision had been made in the Constitution for the last thirty-five years for voting arrangements to be made for expatriates, no measures had been taken to give effect to the right in question. The Court therefore had to examine whether, despite the failure to enact legislation on the conditions for exercising the right to vote, the electoral system nevertheless permitted “the free expression of the opinion of the people” and preserved “the very essence of the right to vote”, and, more generally, whether Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 placed States under an obligation to introduce a system enabling expatriate citizens to exercise their voting rights from abroad.
Firstly, neither the relevant international and regional treaties nor their interpretation by the competent international bodies provided a basis for concluding that voting rights for persons temporarily or permanently absent from the State of which they were nationals extended to requiring the State concerned to make arrangements for their exercise abroad. It was true that the institutions of the Council of Europe had on several occasions invited the member States to enable their citizens living abroad to participate to the fullest extent possible in the electoral process. However, as pointed out by the Venice Commission*, facilitating the exercise of expatriates’ voting rights, while certainly desirable, was not mandatory for States but rather was a possibility to be considered by the legislature in each country.
Secondly, a comparative survey of the legislation of Council of Europe member States showed that, as the law stood, it could not be argued that those States were under an obligation to enable their citizens living abroad to exercise the right to vote. While the great majority of the Contracting States allowed their nationals to vote from abroad, some did not. As to the conditions governing the exercise of that right, they currently varied considerably, which implied that the Contracting States had a wide margin of appreciation in the matter.
Thirdly, although the Greek Constitution contained a provision allowing the legislature to arrange for the exercise of expatriates’ voting rights from their place of residence, it did not oblige the legislature to do so, as the content of the provision was optional. Hence, it was not the Court’s place to indicate to the national authorities when and how to implement that provision. Furthermore, it was undeniable that the Greek authorities had made repeated attempts to enact legislation giving effect to the provision in question; however, those attempts had failed to secure political agreement.
Lastly, despite the fact that the applicants were concerned by the issues in their country to the same extent as residents, that was not sufficient to call into question the legal situation in Greece. In any event, the competent authorities could not take account of every individual case in regulating the exercise of voting rights but had to lay down a general rule. As to the disruption to the applicants’ financial, family and professional lives that would have been caused had they had to travel to Greece in order to vote, this did not appear to be disproportionate to the point of infringing the right relied upon.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
*The European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, is an advisory body of the Council of Europe on constitutional matters which was established in 1990.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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