Extraordinary parliamentary elections in Ukraine during martial law

Abstract

The article is devoted to the little-studied issue in Ukraine of the legislative ban on extraordinary, or early, parliamentary elections during the period of the special legal regime of martial law. The subject of the study is such a type of early parliamentary elections as interim elections of people’s deputies. The relevance of the researched issue is determined by the ongoing martial law regime in Ukraine and the legislative ban on holding any elections, the necessity of which arises during this martial law. It is noted that the difference between ordinary and extraordinary parliamentary elections in the conditions of this martial law is that the ban on holding ordinary parliamentary elections leaves the country with a valid parliament, and the ban on holding extraordinary parliamentary elections deprives the country of a valid parliament. In order to investigate the legality of the application of this ban to the interim elections of people’s deputies, the following was analyzed: first, the legislative justification of the state election management body in Ukraine regarding the non-appointment and non-holding of these interim parliamentary elections during this martial law, using the example of the latest case from December 13, 2023; and secondly, the publications of Ukrainian scientists regarding these interim parliamentary elections in the conditions of this martial law. It was found out, firstly, that this ban is not a norm of the Constitution of Ukraine neither for scientists nor for the state election management body, and secondly, that this ban does not have an indisputable link of consistency with the Constitution of Ukraine: some legal researchers claim , that this ban corresponds to Article 64 of the Constitution of Ukraine, but other researchers of this Article 64 come to conclusions that exclude the possibility of consistency of this ban with this article of the Constitution of Ukraine. It is substantiated that the content of Article 64 of the Constitution of Ukraine has three meanings regarding the interim elections of people’s deputies during this martial law: 1) they can be held, 2) they can not be held, 3) they can be held with a limited number of voters. It is proposed to consider as an alternative to this prohibition of by-elections of people’s deputies during this state of war martial law electoral qualification - a special and temporary restriction of the circle of voters for holding these by-elections in the conditions of this war. A variant of this qualification is proposed - the qualification of a legal entity.