Should the new vehicle tax law be canceled? This is what the municipal councilor in the City of Geneva, Daniel Sormanni, wants. Represented by lawyers Stéphane Grodecki and Romain Jordan, the elected MCG filed an appeal on November 21 before the Constitutional Chamber of the Court of Justice. An approach which follows revelations in the press of the large increases suffered by some car owners. Explaining his approach on Léman Bleu, he said: “The people must vote again.”
The appeal reviews the history of this reform in favor of which Genevans voted on March 3. It is based on the fact that, according to the deputies who worked on the counter-project, the increases were not modeled or detected. “If the authorities did not have accurate and complete information on the effect of the law, they cannot have transmitted it to the electorate at the time of the vote,” argue the appellant and his lawyers.
“The electorate could therefore in no case form an opinion faithful to reality on the basis of the information and material provided, even by careful reading of the brochure.” And to ask for “pure and simple cancellation” of the vote “in view of the seriousness and impact of the lack of information”. The trio also wants the courts to issue urgent provisional measures in order to suspend the effects of the law due to “the number of people affected and the complexity of possible reimbursements”.
In a statement released on Thursday, the MCG added: “It has been conclusively established that there has been a global dysfunction in our democratic system.” The party also announced that it would make available on its website “a standard complaint letter to send to the Cantonal Vehicle Office”.
It is very rare for votes to be canceled. In April 2019, the Federal Court (TF) annulled a federal vote from 2016. It concerned the PDC initiative “No to penalizing marriage”. The High Court then ruled that the Federal Council had failed in its duty of information and transparency.
Regarding the appeals aimed at canceling the AVS21 vote (which plans to push back the retirement age of women to 65), due to calculation errors in the AVS forecasts, the TF will rule on December 12 .
