Complaints against the validity of Polish elections to the  EU Parliament and their consideration in 2014 year

The election protests concerning Polish elections to the European Parliament from 2014 year focused on a number of specific issues. Noteworthy is the number of them – 64. So far, in Polish European elections of 2014 year brought them the most. Still, a large percentage of judgments in election protests are those, in which The Supreme Court shall not act upon a complaint filed by a person not entitled to do so based on the grounds laid down in electoral code. This may indicate the ignorance of people who made such a remedy on the timing and the grounds of his lodge.

Proceedings in electoral mode

This article draws attention to the specific differences in legal regulations contained in the Electoral Code from 5th of January 2011 from ‘fixed legal rules’. The institutions covered by the title of the publication concern three areas. The first one is aimed at examining the legality of the elections and is connected with the possible questioning of their result by filing an election protest. The second institution, which is known under the common name “proceedings in electoral mode”, deals with matters related to the socalled dissemination of untrue information and consequences of this fact, which in particular results from the regulation contained in art. 111 of the Electoral Code. The third circle are other legal measures aimed at limiting the scope of acting to a specific act in the electoral process, such as the measure consisting of the possibility of lodging a complaint against refusal to register in the Electoral Register. Such a choice made it possible to make the first conclusion, namely that the electoral process has its own dynamics, and that the essential issue that measures its sequences are terms and their normative shape. The next issue, which was mentioned in this article, is the spectrum of measures that have been included in art. 111 of the Electoral Code in the event of a possible reaction to the dissemination of false information.From the whole range of possibilities, the author draws a special attention to the issue of corrigenda and responses. Those institutions refer to the Press Law. Nevertheless, the amendment to the Press Law consisting of deleting the institution of response, makes the protection system included in the Electoral Code completely illusory in the case of requesting publication of the response to a statement threatening personal interests. This conclusion of this publication is deeply concerning, especially that those institutions ought to be a ‘fuse’ to protect the public from dissemination of untrue information, so that they could be used as a protective measure for the public welfare. This is a public welfare in the form of preventing distortion of the electoral result.