367 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "Where legislation foresees public funding, political parties must have access to it subject to possible minimum requirements. The latter must be reasonable and non-discriminatory. Apart from different forms of funding provided for by law, any party must refrain from receiving assistance, financial or in kind, from any public authorities, particularly those directed by its members."
- "Reasonable limitations on campaign expenditure may be justified where this is necessary to ensure that the free choice of voters is not undermined or the democratic process distorted by the disproportionate expenditure on behalf of any candidate or party."
- "States should consider adopting measures to prevent excessive funding needs of political parties, such as, establishing limits on expenditure on electoral campaigns."
- "In order to ensure equality of opportunities for the different political forces, electoral campaign expenses shall be limited to a ceiling, appropriate to the situation in the country and fixed in proportion to the number of voters concerned."
- "Voters need to be empowered to choose as autonomous and informed citizens, free from pressures, intimidation, seduction through economic benefits and informed about the resources and support for candidates and parties."
- "Restrictions on fund raising and campaign expenditure should be reasonable and apply equally to all candidates and political parties."
- "Reasonable limitations on campaign expenditure may be justified to ensure that the free choice of voters is not undermined or the democratic process distorted by disproportionate campaigning on behalf of any candidate or party."
- "While it is understood that elections do not always take place on a completely level playing field, reasonable limitations on campaign expenditure could be introduced to avoid disproportionate expenditure on behalf of any candidate or party. Expenditures in regard to campaign may be regulated by the election law or separate legislation dealing with public financing if campaign funds are to be provided by the state."
- "Any limits on fund-raising and campaign spending should not be so stringent that candidates are unable to pay for basic campaign costs such as salaries, transportation, office expenses, the purchase of space in the media, and the printing and distribution of campaign materials. Reasonable restrictions may include, for example, prohibitions of funding of campaign expenses from foreign sources, public corporations, or anonymous sources."
- "The Electoral Commission should…be legally empowered to prohibit certain types of expenditures so as to limit the undue impact of money on the democratic process and the outcome of an election."
- "The state should consider adopting measures to prevent excessive funding requirements of political parties and candidates, such as establishing limits on expenditure for electoral campaigns."
- "In order to ensure equality of opportunities for the different political forces, electoral campaign expenses should have a fixed ceiling."
- "Finally, regulations on election expenses should also set reasonable limits on expenditure. They should not be so low as to disable any effective political competition, nor too high to constitute a meaningful ceiling on expenses in practice."
- "Political parties and candidates should be partly financed through private means. Private sources of funding may be internal or external to the party."
- "The right of persons to stand for election should not be limited unreasonably by requiring candidates to be members of parties or of specific parties."
- "The law should also provide the right to challenge a decision on political party registration."
- "The disqualification of a candidate should be made only on the most serious grounds. Candidates should have an opportunity to rectify technical errors in their nominations and to challenge their disqualification. All complaints relating to candidate registration should be resolved within a reasonable timeframe before election day so that successful candidates have sufficient opportunity to campaign."
- "Party, candidate and ballot measure qualification require remedies that provide ballot access should requirements be met…"
- "Any interference of public authorities with the activities of political parties, such as, for example, denial of registration, loss of the status of a political party if a given party has not succeeded in obtaining representation in the legislative bodies (where applied), should be motivated, and legislation should provide for an opportunity for the party to challenge such decision or action in a court of law."
- "A deadline should be set by the electoral law, after which the validity of candidatures may no longer be challenged...The time-frame for the verification process of the candidatures should be adjusted accordingly."
- "Candidates or political parties shall have the right to be represented at polling and counting stations by duly designated agents or representatives."
- "Various political parties are represented in the polling station as long as voting is permitted."
- "It is particularly important to guarantee the possibility of all parties and candidates to have observers during the election day. In this respect, it is evident that parties have some elements –permanent organization, membership, and so on- which help them in this task, and that are much more difficult to dispose of for other non-partisan candidates. These observers must have the right to control all the spheres of the voting process (polling boxes, election committees at all levels), to intervene – at least, to be heard- in the resolution of possible conflicts which may arise, and to inform the parties which they represent about the problems during the observation so that the latter could lodge appeals against any decision not grounded in legal terms."
- "Depending on the subject matter, equality may be strict or proportional. If it is strict, political parties are treated on an equal footing irrespective of their current parliamentary strength or support among the electorate. If it is proportional, political parties must be treated according to the results achieved in the elections. Equality of opportunity applies in particular to radio and television air-time, public funds, and other forms of backing."
- "The principle of equality of opportunity can, in certain cases, lead to a limitation of political party spending, especially on advertising."
- "States should impose limits on the maximum expenditure permitted during election campaigns, given that in the absence of an upper threshold on expenditure there are no limits to the escalation of costs, which is an incentive for parties to intensify their search for funds."
- "State financial contributions should, on the one hand, be calculated in ratio to the political support which the parties enjoy, evaluated on objective criteria such as the number of votes cast or the number of parliamentary seats won, and on the other hand enable new parties to enter the political arena and to compete under fair conditions with the more well-established parties."
- "State support should not exceed the level strictly necessary to achieve the above objectives, since excessive reliance on state funding can lead to the weakening of links between parties and their electorate."
- "Besides their financial contributions, states may contribute indirectly to financing political parties based on law, for example by covering the costs of postage and of meeting rooms, by supporting party media, youth organisations and research institutes; and also by granting tax incentives."
- "Political parties should receive financial contributions from the state budget in order to prevent dependence on private donors and to guarantee equality of chances between political parties."
- "Political parties and candidates should have equitable access to public funds, and the rules regarding public funding should be clearly stated in law."
- "[States should] ensure transparency of the electoral process, particularly in: 8.2.2. electoral campaign funding and party financing: legislation in this field is necessary not only to regulate the origin of funding and set a limit on expenditure, but also to enable all voters to have access to data on the nature and amount of campaign and party spending. "
- "[States should foster citizen participation in the electoral process by] guaranteeing that all possible means are used to make all polling stations accessible. "
- "Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions. "
- " Requirements for the registration of candidates and political parties which are too strict should be abolished. "
- "Every citizen has the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, including the right to stand for elected office, to participate in the formulation of policies affecting their welfare, and to have equal access to all levels of public service and employment in public functions, including serving in the police and military, without discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. "
- "In this regard, the Committee recalls its General Comment on article 25, according to which the exercise of the rights protected by article 25 may not be suspended or excluded except on grounds which are established by law and which are objective and reasonable. The Committee notes that article 68, part 6, of the Electoral Code, gives a right to electoral commissions to refuse registering a candidate when he or she submits data that does not “correspond to reality”, including biographic data and information on income and property. "
- "In this regard, the Committee notes that article 25 of the Covenant secures to every citizen the right and the opportunity to be elected at genuine periodic elections without any of the distinctions mentioned in article 2, paragraph 1, including political opinion. "
- "The applicant was entitled under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to stand for election in fair and democratic conditions, regardless of whether ultimately he won or lost. In the present case, Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 requires the Court not to ascertain merely that the election outcome as such was not prejudiced, but to verify that the applicant's individual right to stand for election was not deprived of its effectiveness and that its essence had not been impaired."
- "The Court cannot but acknowledge the seriousness of the claims made by the applicant before the domestic authorities. In particular, he complained of unlawful interference in the election process by local executive authorities, undue influence on voter choice, several instances of ballot-box stuffing, harassment of observers, irregularities in electoral rolls and obvious discrepancies in PEC protocols showing a possible failure to account for as many as thousands of “unused” blank ballots. The Court considers that these types of irregularities, if duly confirmed to have taken place, were indeed potentially capable of thwarting the democratic nature of the elections. "
- "The rights bestowed by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 are not absolute. There is room for “implied limitations” and Contracting States have a wide margin of appreciation in the sphere of elections (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt, cited above, § 52; Matthews v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 24833/94, § 63, ECHR 1999-I; and Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, § 201, ECHR 2000-IV). It is, however, for the Court to determine in the last resort whether the requirements of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 have been complied with. In particular, it has to satisfy itself, among other things, that the conditions in which individual rights are exercised in the course of the electoral process do not curtail the rights in question to such an extent as to impair their very essence and deprive them of their effectiveness (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt, cited above, § 52, and Gitonas and Others v. Greece, 1 July 1997, § 39, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-IV). Such conditions must not thwart the free expression of the people in the choice of the legislature – in other words, they must reflect, or not run counter to, the concern to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of an electoral procedure aimed at identifying the will of the people through universal suffrage (see Hirst (no. 2), cited above, § 62)."
- "In the case of Podkolzina v. Latvia, the Court stated that the right to stand as a candidate in an election, which is guaranteed by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 and is inherent in the concept of a truly democratic regime, would only be illusory if one could be arbitrarily deprived of it at any moment. Consequently, while it is true that States have a wide margin of appreciation when establishing eligibility conditions in the abstract, the principle that rights must be effective requires that the eligibility procedure contain sufficient safeguards to prevent arbitrary decisions (see Podkolzina v. Latvia, no. 46726/99, § 35, ECHR 2002-II). Although originally stated in connection with the conditions on eligibility to stand for election, the principle requiring prevention of arbitrariness is equally relevant in other situations where the effectiveness of individual electoral rights is at stake (see, mutatis mutandis, Kovach v. Ukraine, no. 39424/02, § 55, ECHR 2008‑...)."
- "While this margin of appreciation is wide, it is certainly not all-embracing: the rules governing the electoral system “should not be such as to exclude some persons or groups of persons from participating in the political life of the country and, in particular, in the choice of the legislature, a right guaranteed by both the Convention and the Constitutions of all Contracting States” (ibid.). It is for the Court to determine in the last resort whether the requirements of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 have been complied with. It has to satisfy itself that the restrictions imposed do not thwart the free expression of the opinion of the people. "
- "The Court considers that, irrespective of whether or not the request was made outside the legal time frame for the registration of candidacies submitted by political parties, the decision of IFE not to accept the alleged victim’s request constituted, for the effects of this Court’s competence, an act enforcing the law, since this negative was based, first, on the provisions of Article 177 of the COFIPE concerning the legal time frames for the registration of candidacies and, second, on the provisions of Article 175 of COFIPE, concerning candidacies by means of political parties, and this authority had indicated the legal impossibility of accepting Mr. Castañeda Gutman’s request. This decision, based on the constitutional and legal provisions that regulate the matter, issued by the competent administrative authority hat ruled on the legal issue filed before it, with the specific and concrete effect of not allowing the registration of the candidacy, was the act enforcing the law, and was even considered as such by the domestic courts. "
- "Political participation by exercising the right to be elected supposes that citizens can postulate themselves as candidates in conditions of equality and that they can occupy public office subject to election if they are able to achieve the necessary number of votes. "
- "Article 23(2) of the American Convention establishes that the law may regulate the exercise and opportunities of such rights only on the basis of “age, nationality, residence, language, education, civil and mental capacity, or sentencing by a competent court in criminal proceedings.” The provision that limits the reasons for which it is possible to restrict the use of the rights of paragraph 1 has only one purpose – in light of the Convention as a whole and of its essential principles – to avoid the possibility of discrimination against individuals in the exercise of their political rights. It is evident that the inclusion of these reasons refers to the enabling conditions that the law can impose to exercise political rights. Restrictions based on these criteria are common in national electoral laws, which provide for the establishment of the minimum age to vote and to be elected, and some connection to the electoral district where the right is exercised, among other regulations. Provided that they are not disproportionate or unreasonable, these are limits that the States may legitimately establish to regulate the exercise and enjoyment of political rights and that, it should be repeated, they refer to certain requirements that the titleholders of political rights must comply with so as to be able to exercise them. "
- "This positive obligation consists in designing a system that allows representatives to be elected to conduct public affairs. Indeed, for political rights to be exercised, the law must establish regulations that go beyond those related to certain State limitations to restrict those rights, established in Article 23(2). The States must organize their electoral systems and establish a complex number of conditions and formalities to make it possible to exercise the right to vote and to be elected. "
- "The Court finds it necessary to indicate that, in general, international law does not impose a specific electoral system or a specific means of exercising the rights to vote and to be elected. This is clear from the norms that regulate political rights in both the universal and the regional sphere, and from the authorized interpretations made by their organs of application. "
- "In the sphere of political rights the guarantee obligation is especially relevant and is implemented, among other mechanisms, by the establishment of the organizational and institutional aspects of the electoral processes, and by the enactment of norms and the adoption of different types of measures to implement the rights and opportunities recognized in Article 23 of the Convention. In the absence of this action by the State, the right to vote and to be elected could simply not be exercised. The political and other rights established in the Convention, such as the right to judicial protection, are rights that “cannot be merely by virtue of the provisions that embody them, because they are, by their very nature, ineffectual without a detailed normative regulation, and even without a complex institutional, economic and human apparatus that endows them with the effectiveness they claim, as rights under the Convention[…]; if there were no electoral codes or law, electors’ lists, political parties, propaganda media and mobilization, polling stations, electoral boards, dates and times for exercising the vote, the right could simply not be exercised, due to its very nature; similarly, the right to judicial protection cannot be exercised unless there are courts that grant this right, and procedural norms that discipline it and make it possible. "
- "The Inter-American system also does not impose a specific electoral system or a specific means of exercising the rights to vote and to be elected. The American Convention establishes general guidelines that determine a minimum content of political rights and allows the States to regulate those rights, within the parameters established in the Convention, according to their historical, political, social and cultural needs, which may vary from one country to another and even within one country, at different historical moments. "