Commentary on Sections and Schedules Vacancies Section 11: Electoral Region Vacancies
67.Section 11 provides the machinery for filling a regional seat which becomes vacant (for example, because of the resignation or death of the Assembly regional member). If the seat which has fallen vacant was held by a candidate drawn from the list which a party had submitted at the previous general election, the vacancy is filled by the next candidate on that list, provided that person still wishes to be elected, and, in the case of a person who has ceased to be a member of the party, the party has not given notice that it does not wish that person to fill the vacancy.
68.A person who has, since that general election, been a candidate in a constituency by-election, is barred from taking up a regional vacancy as is a person who has previously been allocated a regional seat (and has, for example, ceased to hold that seat by reason of having resigned).
69.If, for any reason, the vacant seat cannot be filled from a party’s list (for example because all the candidates on the list have been exhausted or the only candidates who are left are barred from filling the vacancy) then the seat remains vacant until the next ordinary or extraordinary general election.
70.If the Assembly regional member whose seat has become vacant was elected as an individual candidate, as opposed to being drawn from a party list, there is no procedure for filling the seat and it remains vacant until the next ordinary or extraordinary general election.