The national electoral commission must therefore stop preforming electoral tasks.

SDS Party requested the constitutional control, being of the opinion that it would be cheaper to conduct the referendum simultaneously with the elections for the European parliament, i.e. on May 25, or simultaneously with the autumn local elections. They are also dissatisfied with the short terms for the execution of the referendum, by which the electoral voting right are infringed. They believe that the decree should be stayed until the final decision will have been reached. The Parliamentary Culture Committee is of the opposite opinion; on Tuesday the opinion was adopted that the temporary stay is not necessary.

When deciding on temporary stay of a challenged regulation, the constitutional court always weights the damaging consequences which the execution of an eventually unconstitutional regulation might cause. If it turned out that the voters realized their right to vote in referendum based on an unconstitutional regulation, it would, in court's opinion, impair the credibility of the result of the referendum. They estimated that the temporary stay of the decree would cause less damage. If it later turned out that the decree was not unconstitutional, the only consequence would be a new voting date.

Therefore the constitutional court stayed the execution of the decree until the final decision is taken. But since the date for the beginning of the preparations for the referendum was April 3, the constitutional court decreed that the national election commission should stop performing all the tasks even before their decision is published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia. The decision on referendum will be treated as an absolute priority, claims the Court.

Robert Škrjanc, Radio Slovenija
Translated by G. K.