## Facts

- Parliament enacted a statute amending the Electoral Code and Code of Municipalities for municipal elections in communes of 3,500 inhabitants or more.
- The statute added Electoral Code Article L. 262, requiring party lists to limit the proportion of candidates of the same sex (commonly described as a cap on one sex), effectively imposing a minimum presence of women on lists.
- More than sixty deputies referred the statute for pre-promulgation constitutional review under Article 61 of the 1958 Constitution.
- An attempted referral by an individual was rejected as inadmissible because Article 61 authorizes referral only by specified constitutional actors.
- The challenge argued that conditioning eligibility and list composition on sex violated constitutional principles of national sovereignty and equality in suffrage.

## Issues

1. Whether a statutory requirement limiting the proportion of candidates of the same sex on municipal election lists violates Article 3 of the 1958 Constitution governing national sovereignty exercised through universal suffrage.
2. Whether the legislature may structure political representation by treating citizens as distinct categories (men and women) for purposes of eligibility and candidate selection.
3. Whether sex-based numerical constraints on candidacy are compatible with equality of citizens in the exercise of suffrage.

## Decision

- The Constitutional Council held the sex-quota requirement unconstitutional.
- The Council ruled that the quota introduced a sex-based distinction among citizens in the exercise of national sovereignty, contrary to Article 3.
- The Council invalidated the statutory provision imposing sex-based limits on candidate lists, rendering it inapplicable.

## Legal Principles

- Article 3 requires that national sovereignty be exercised through representatives elected by universal suffrage, and it forbids appropriating sovereignty by any “section” of the people or any individual.
- The Constitution does not recognize political representation organized around “categories” of citizens; representatives are elected by all citizens and do not represent particular groups.
- Equality in the exercise of suffrage bars conditioning eligibility for election on a personal characteristic such as sex and bars organizing electoral competition around mandatory category-based representation.
- Legislative authority to regulate elections is constrained by constitutional requirements of national sovereignty and equal political rights.

## Conclusion

The Constitutional Council struck down statutory sex-based candidate quotas for municipal election lists, holding that Article 3’s principles of indivisible national sovereignty and equality in suffrage prohibit the legislature from organizing representation by categorizing citizens by sex and conditioning candidacy on that classification.


Decision No. 82-146 DC (Fr. Const. Council Nov. 18, 1982)