EKRE: Lawmakers need to rein in courts
Commenting on a recent court decision to allow the entry of a same-sex couple married in Sweden into the Estonian population register, the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) declared on Saturday that President Kersti Kaljulaid and Chief Justice Priit Pikamäe did not rise to their roles as protectors of the Constitution.
The party said that the president and the chief justice were interfering with the Riigikogu’s work to justify the courts’ taking the law in their own hands.
“The courts’ taking the law in their own hands is threatening Estonian democracy,” the statement read. “The council of the Estonian Conservative People’s Party resolutely condemns cases where courts usurp the legislative authority and start making the law instead of administering it.”
The statement also said that EKRE considered it to be a threat to democracy when the president and chief justice made demands to the parliament’s work to justify the courts’ behavior.
According to EKRE, it is necessary to change the legislative framework to improve the transparency and lawfulness of courts, especially as judges are appointed for life.
Chairman of EKRE’s parliamentary group, Martin Helme, made a statement in the Riigikogu on Monday in which he threatened the judges whose decisions made it possible to enter the first same-sex marriage in the population register.
In a speech made in the Riigikogu on Monday, Helme said that their their heads should roll. “I want a threat to be heard from this rostrum. I want the heads of Virgo Saarmets, Maret Altnurme and Kaire Pikamäe to roll because it cannot be that some aunties sit down and just change Estonia’s laws and then decide that nobody can touch them,” Helme said.
President Kersti Kaljulaid, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Priit Pikamäe, President of the Riigikogu Eiki Nestor (SDE) and the Estonian Association of Judges all condemned Helme’s statement.
At the party’s Saturday council meeting they also announced their candidates for mayors of Tallinn and Pärnu: chairman of the party’s parliamentary group, Martin Helme, and chairman of the party, Mart Helme.
Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS