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Legal liability
(1) Natural and legal persons, initiative groups, electoral competitors and referendum
participants, as well as other subjects involved in the electoral process, who violate the
provisions of electoral laws, prevent the free exercise of electoral rights, impede the work of
electoral bodies, shall be held liable in accordance with the law.
(2) For infringements of legislative electoral acts, the Central Electoral Commission,
where appropriate, may, ex officio or upon a request of another competent authority or
objectors, impose or request the application of the following basic or complementary
sanctions:
a) warning;
b) denial of airtime free of charge and/or against payment, for a period from 24 to 48
hours, which may be applied only after the penalty in the form of a warning has been given;
c) deprivation of state budget allowances;
d) application of administrative penalty under the Contravention Code;
e) cancel of the registration, accreditation or confirmation of electoral subjects;
f) request of ex officio deregistration of political parties.
(3) The penalty in the form of a warning may be imposed by decision of the Central
Electoral Commission for infringement of legislative electoral acts other than those laid down
in paragraph (5), in the case of any election, and by decision of the electoral constituency
council — in the case of local elections and referenda.
(4) The Central Electoral Commission shall impose on political parties registered as
electoral competitors the additional penalty of deprivation of State budget allowances for a
period of 2 months to one year only in the event of repeated application of the penalty in the
form of a warning, during an electoral period, for infringements relating to the financing of the
work of initiative groups and/or of the election campaign.
(5) The cancellation of registration shall apply by decision of the electoral body
registering the subject of the election if established that:
a) more than 1 per cent of undeclared financial and material funds was used in relation
to the ceiling of the means that can be transferred to the electoral fund account or to the
initiative group account;
b) expenditure exceeded the ceiling of funds of the electoral fund or the initiative group;
c) financial means from abroad were used, with the exception of donations from
citizens of the Republic of Moldova with income obtained outside the country;
d) the candidate required to be suspended from office was not suspended. In such a
case, the registration of the electoral competitor, the independent candidate shall be cancelled
or the candidate shall be excluded from the list of the electoral competitor;
(6) In the event of infringement of the provisions of this Code and of other legislative
acts in the electoral field by electoral officials, the Central Electoral Commission, where
appropriate, the electoral constituency council, may impose the following sanctions:
a) warning;
b) removal from the composition of the electoral bodies and their work apparatus;
c) removal from the Register of Electoral Officials;
d) deprivation of the right to engage in any activity in electoral bodies for a period of
one to four years.
(7) For violations of legislative acts on the election coverage by media service
providers, the Audiovisual Council may apply the sanctions set out in the Audiovisual Media
Services Code of the Republic of Moldova.
(8) In the event of a breach by the observer of the electoral regulatory framework, the
electoral body accrediting the observer shall be entitled to cancel the accreditation by adopting
a decision in this respect. For the purposes of this Article, any act of electoral agitation for or
against a political party or electoral competitor, initiative group, referendum participant, choice
of questions submitted to the referendum or attempt to influence the voter’s choice, as well as
failure to comply with the observer’s obligations, shall qualify as an violation.
(9) The Central Electoral Commission may ask the Public Services Agency to
deregister political parties ex-officio under the terms of Law No 294/2007 on political parties.