Voting law unconstitutional: Court

The Marshall Islands Supreme Court has ruled a three-year-old law banning the use of postal absentee ballots for national elections is unconstitutional.

But because the two complaints that triggered this week’s ruling were filed close to the November 18 national election, the Supreme Court’s ruling will apply only for later elections.

The complaints were filed by Marshallese citizens living in the United States.

The judges said a qualified Marshallese voter residing outside the Marshalls has the constitutional right to vote in the national or local elections.

In response, the President’s Office in a statement said the court decision would not affect the November 19 election, so that poll will go ahead as planned, based on the current law and with existing restrictions on postal ballots.

But Parliament’s Speaker, Kenneth Kedi, said the declaration of the postal ban law was unconstitutional voids that law, so reviving the previous election law, allowing voters living outside the Marshalls to vote using postal absentee ballots.

The government now needed to take action to provide postal ballots to registered voters living overseas, he said. ceptable standards in force, meaning that voting rights would be restricted to long-term residents.

France has, to date, ignored the territory’s 2013 relisting by the UN General Assembly, describing it as a glaring interference.

Paris has also ignored calls for a referendum made by pro- as well as antiindependence politicians.

Mr Temaru also said Cuban doctors should be allowed to work in French Polynesia to relieve the doctor shortage in the outer islands.