Home > 5.3 Validity of the question > Referendums in Europe - An Analysis of the Legal Rules in European States
 
 
 
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Paragraph 63
 

Apart from elections and questions submitted to the decision of judicial or administrative bodies, which are expressly excluded from referendums by Armenian, Austrian and Azerbaijani law and implicitly excluded by the law of many other countries, the principal matters in respect of which national law rules out a referendum are financial, budgetary and tax issues (Albania, Azerbaijan, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, MaltaPoland on the initiative of the citizens, Portugal, and “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”), amnesties and pardons (Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Italy, Poland on the initiative of the citizensand “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”) and restrictions on fundamental rights (Albania, Armenia, Georgia). It may also relate to territorial integrity (Albania), states of emergency (Albania, Estonia),the powers of Parliament, judicial bodies and the Constitutional Court (Bulgaria), texts concerning the civil service, naturalisation and expropriations (Denmark), the monarchy and the royal family (Netherlands under the temporary law applicable up to 2004, Denmark to a certain extent), legislative acts that are submitted to a special procedure and whose content is imposed by the constitution or acts constitutionally necessary for the operation of the state (Italy, Portugal), and appointments and dismissals (“the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”). The implementation of international treaties cannot be submitted to the decision of the people in Denmark, Hungary, Malta and the Netherlands (temporary law), so as to avoid a breach of international law. Similarly, Swiss law allows for (but does not make compulsory) an international treaty and its implementing provisions (constitutional or legislative) to be put to a single vote.