European justice rejects the request of far-right candidate Calin Georgescu

Calin Georgescu filed his request on December 16 before the ECHR in the name of the right to free elections.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected, on Tuesday January 21, the request of Calin Georgescu, the far-right candidate who came first in the first round of the presidential election in Romania at the end of 2024. He contested the cancellation of the vote by the Romanian Constitutional Court on December 6, two days before the second round. The Romanian authorities accused Calin Georgescu of having benefited from an illicit support campaign on the TikTok platform, potentially led by Russia.

The candidate filed a request before the ECHR on December 16, in the name of the right to free elections. He had invoked Article 39 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which allows the Court to take measures “provisional” urgently, explains the Strasbourg institution in a press release.

But unanimously by the seven judges seized of this case, the Court rejected “Mr Georgescu's request on the grounds that it does not fall within the scope of Article 39″. “The Court only issues interim measures in the presence of an imminent risk of irreparable harm to the one of the rights protected by the Convention”she recalls. “Such measures can only be adopted in exceptional circumstances.” This judgment does not prejudge subsequent decisions on the admissibility or merits of the cases in question, the Court further recalls.

At the beginning of January, the Romanian government set the dates of the two rounds of the new presidential elections for May 4 and 18.