Macedonia Judges Oppose Ink Marks For Voters

Most Constitutional Court judges in Macedonia have sided with a call to abandon the new system of transparent hand markings, at the start of a debate on scrapping the provision.

Judges argue that the practice, which was introduced for this year's March-April general and presidential elections, is contrary to constitutionally guaranteed rights concerning the secrecy of voting.

"Our election system does not foresee sanctions for those who do not wish to vote, [so] the marking of voters goes against the guaranteed freedoms of thought, persuasion and expression," Judge Vlado Stojanovski said.

The judge in charge of leading the case, Vangelina Markudova, echoed the same line. "There is a need to scrap this article because it goes against several constitutional provisions that concern human rights," the judge said.

Putting visible ink on the hands of voters was introduced as a way of meeting the demands of opposition parties for new ways to prevent multiple voting.

But, after much criticism by observers at the last elections, university law professor Tanja Karakamisheva, supported by several other professors, submitted an initiative for its annulment to the Constitutional Court.

After the last elections, the head of the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Stefan Schennach, said that putting a visible mark on a voter's fingers to avoid fraud "was not a good idea" and that the previous practice of putting "invisible ink would have been better".

Schennach explained that the use of visible ink to show whether someone had voted or not could put some people into an unequal position, and potentially in jeopardy, especially in areas where one or more parties had called on people not...