NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

elections because they did not fulfil one or more of the new conditions. The Court agreed that by these means the Bulgarian authorities tried to solve the problem of so called ‘ghost parties’, but, even following this aim, they had to observe the principle of stability in the fundamental rules of electoral law. Therefore, introducing into domestic law the system of election deposits and the requirement of 5,000 signatures in support of a party’s participation in the elections at such a late stage was not consistent with the Convention. The Bulgarian authorities accordingly had failed to strike a fair balance between the legitimate interests of society as a whole and the right of the applicant party to be represented in the parliamentary elections. The introduction of new conditions concerning elections at a late stage was also an issue in the case of Georgian Labour Party v. Georgia . 1217 Here, the Court did not find an infringement of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention on account of a new requirement introduced by the decree of the Central Electoral Commission (hereinafter also referred to as the ‘CEC’) in December 2003 for the elections that took place in March 2004. The adopted decree required electoral districts to publish preliminary lists of voters and obliged voters to go there to check that their names were on the lists. It was a reaction to the so-called ‘Rose Revolution,’ because of which the state authorities had to annul the results of the parliamentary election of November 2003 and hold new elections. 1218 Following various complaints about voting irregularities in the election of March 2004, the CEC annulled the results in the Kobuleti and Khulo electoral districts in the Autonomous Republic of Ajaria. It also set 18 April 2004 as the date for a new vote. On that day, however, the polling stations in those two districts failed to open due to tensions between central and local authorities. The same day, the CEC tallied the votes and announced the results of the elections. The applicant party had received 6.01% of the vote, which was not enough to cross the 7% threshold needed to obtain seats in Parliament. The applicant party appealed unsuccessfully to domestic courts. The Court in the present case entertained three main objections of the applicant party as to unfairness of electoral procedures: 1) introduction of a new system of voter registration; 2) composition of the electoral commissions and 3) exclusion of the Khulo and Kobuleti district’s votes from the total election results. With regard to the first issue, the Court noted that the authorities had to solve the problem of chaotic electoral rolls within very tight deadlines (between 25 November 2003 and 28 March 2004), in a “post-revolutionary” political situation. It would have been an excessive and impracticable burden to expect an ideal solution from them. 1219 In such circumstances, the unexpected change in the rules on voter registration one month before the repeat election did not give rise to criticism under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1. In the Court’s opinion, the active system of voter registration could not in itself break the applicant party’s right to stand for election.

1217 Georgian Labour Party , cited above. 1218 BUYSE, 2011, cited above, p. 234. 1219 WELLER, M. and NOBBS, K. Political participation of minorities : a commentary on international standards and practice. New York : Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 189.

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