1136 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "Accessibility is related to groups, whereas reasonable accommodation is related to individuals. This means that the duty to provide accessibility is an ex ante duty. States parties therefore have the duty to provide accessibility before receiving an individual request to enter or use a place or service. (...) The obligation to implement accessibility is unconditional, i.e. the entity obliged to provide accessibility may not excuse the omission to do so by referring to the burden of providing access for persons with disabilities. "
- "The duty to provide reasonable accommodation is an ex nunc duty, which means that it is enforceable from the moment an individual with an impairment needs it in a given situation, for example, workplace or school, in order to enjoy her or his rights on an equal basis in a particular context. Here, accessibility standards can be an indicator, but may not be taken as prescriptive. Reasonable accommodation can be used as a means of ensuring accessibility for an individual with a disability in a particular situation. Reasonable accommodation seeks to achieve individual justice in the sense that non-discrimination or equality is assured, taking the dignity, autonomy and choices of the individual into account."
- "They solemnly declare that among those elements of justice which are essential to the full expression of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all human beings are the following: (5.4) a clear separation between the State and political parties; in particular, political parties will not be merged with the State."
- "The fact that incumbents and elected representatives, in particular, have access to and control over public sector staff, finances, allocations and public facilities, is crucial during electoral campaigns, because it may confer an advantage over the competitors in elections. Administrative resources can also be used to acquire prestige or public awareness, to enhance the perception of incumbents, elected representatives and candidates by the public, which may lead to political endorsement or other forms of support."
- "Particularly where the right to vote is extended to all citizens who are resident abroad, regardless of intention to return, it may be desirable to have stricter eligibility rules for candidates. This would usually take the form of a residence requirement."
- "Unless the right to lodge requests for information is anchored in clear procedural rules, it is unlikely to be effective. These rules need to be simple, so that ordinary people can easily understand them (and hence be able to make requests), but they also need to be reasonably comprehensive, so as not to provide reluctant officials with loopholes to avoid responding to requests."
- "Citizens need to be protected in the processing of personal data particularly during the election period when large amounts of personal data are processed, including those available in the electoral registers. As regards the registers data privacy has to be balanced against the transparency required for electoral integrity."
- "The data processing in both electoral and political advertising (in particular microtargeting advertising) context shall comply with data protection principles under Article 5 of Convention 108+. These personal data must be processed in compliance with purpose limitation and data minimisation principles. In particular, according to Recommendation CM/Rec(2012)4 of the Committee of Ministers on the protection of human rights with regard to social networking services, social networks should secure the informed consent of their users before their personal data is shared with other categories of people or companies or used in ways other than those necessary for the specified purposes for which they were originally collected."
- "The right to appeal to election bodies and courts should be established to enable a clear, understandable, singular and hierarchical complaint process that defines the roles of each level of election commission and each level of the courts. This will avoid the potential for a complainant to appeal to the body considered likely to offer the most favourable consideration of the complaint. "
- "Any language requirements should not present an unreasonable limitation on candidacies and should be clearly provided for by law. Language tests should be transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and administered fairly."
- "Electronic technologies must function in a manner compatible with the principles enshrined in OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections, and offer the same guarantees for transparency, accountability and public confidence as traditional voting methods."
- "Public security providers should not be engaged in politics, take sides or demonstrate preferential support for any specific party or candidate. They should remain neutral and be perceived as impartial."
- "Public security providers should operate in accordance with domestic law and international norms, and ensure that any necessary interventions are only required to achieve specific objectives of maintaining order based on a legitimate aim. Any restrictions during an electoral process should be based in law and be proportional to the objectives."
- "The use of force must be considered an exceptional measure, not to be executed arbitrarily. It should be proportionate to the threat, minimizing damage and injury, and used only to the extent required to achieve a legitimate objective. National legislation should clearly establish circumstances justifying its use. This includes providing adequate advance notice and using only the level of force needed to deal with various threats. Authorities should develop a range of responses to enable a differentiated and proportional use of force."
- "Public security providers should avoid the use of force in the event of unlawful though non-violent assemblies or limit its use to a minimum."
- "In dispersing violent assemblies and demonstrations, specific reference is made concerning firearms, i.e., that they may be used only when less dangerous measures prove ineffective and when there is an imminent threat of death or of serious injury. Firing indiscriminately into a violent crowd is never a legitimate or an acceptable method of dispersal."
- "The overall approach to electoral security should reflect the principle that the ultimate objective of ensuring a safe and secure electoral environment is not to impose limitations, but to ensure that fundamental rights are not undermined and that they can be freely exercised. Security concerns should not be misused as justification for unduly restricting freedoms."
- "State Parties acknowledge the need to eliminate discrimination against girls and young women according to obligations stipulated in various international, regional and national human rights conventions and instruments designed to protect and promote women's rights. In this regard, they shall: (...) b) Ensure that girls and young women are able to participate actively, equally and effectively with boys at all levels of social, educational, economic, political, cultural, civil life and leadership, as well as scientific endeavours. "
- "State Parties shall take the following measures to promote active youth participation in society: They shall: a) Guarantee the participation of youth in parliament and other decision-making bodies in accordance with the prescribed laws; b) Facilitate that creation or strengthening of platforms for youth participation in decision-making at local, national, regional, and continental levels of governance; c) Ensure equal access of young men and young women to participate in decision-making and in fulfilling civil duties. "
- "The following principles should be applied in all policies and activities concerning young people: (…) Participation: recognising that all young people are a resource to society, all policies and activities concerning young people should uphold young people's right to participate in the development, implementation and follow-up of policies affecting them by means of meaningful participation of young people and youth organisations. In this context, policies should be built in recognition of the changes brought about by digital communication affecting democratic and civic participation."
- "The Council of the European Union and the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States meeting within the Council invite Member States and the European Commission, within their respective fields of competence, to: - Encourage and promote inclusive democratic participation of all young people in society and democratic processes; - Actively engage young people, youth organisations and other organisers of youth work in the development, implementation and evaluation of policies affecting the lives of young people on local, regional, national and European level."
- "The Council of the European Union and the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States meeting within the Council invite Member States and the European Commission, within their respective fields of competence, to: (...) - Explore and promote the use of innovative and alternative forms of democratic participation, e.g. digital democracy tools and facilitate access in order to support youth participation in democratic life and engage young people in an inclusive way, whilst being aware that some young people do not have access to the internet and digital technologies, or the skills to use them."
- "The collection of personal information should be limited to information that is relevant to the purposes of collection and any such information should be obtained by lawful and fair means, and where appropriate, with notice to, or consent of, the individual concerned."
- "Personal information collected should be used only to fulfill the purposes of collection and other compatible or related purposes except: a) with the consent of the individual whose personal information is collected; b) when necessary to provide a service or product requested by the individual; or, c) by the authority of law and other legal instruments, proclamations and pronouncements of legal effect."
- "Where appropriate, individuals should be provided with clear, prominent, easily understandable, accessible and affordable mechanisms to exercise choice in relation to the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information. "
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (b) collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes shall, in accordance with Article 89(1), not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes (‘purpose limitation’)."
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (c) adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed (‘data minimisation’)."
- "Personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which they are to be used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes, should be accurate, complete and kept up to date."
- "The General Assembly (...) 6. Calls upon all States: (...) (e) To provide individuals whose right to privacy has been violated by unlawful or arbitrary surveillance with access to an effective remedy, consistent with international human rights obligations."
- "The General Assembly (...) 7. Calls upon business enterprises: (...) (c) To implement administrative, technical and physical safeguards to ensure that data are processed lawfully and to ensure that such processing is limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes of the processing and that the legitimacy of such purposes, as well as the accuracy, integrity and confidentiality of the processing, is ensured."
- "There must be the possibility for meaningful verification of ballots cast electronically, such as that provided by a manual recount or end-to-end verifiability. (...) The verification mechanism must also fully guarantee the integrity of the results without compromising the secrecy of the vote. "
- "NVT systems are intended to fulfil the same functions as paper-based or mechanical systems and must, therefore, meet the same standards that apply to these systems."
- "While this requirement has broader ramifications, one of the aspects of the principle of equality is that no voter will be able to cast more votes than another, nor will citizens be prevented from participating in voting. This means that NVT systems must prevent any person from casting more votes than is established by law and must prevent any votes from being subtracted from the system. (...) At the same time, the principle of equality means that voting should be accessible to all voters, especially for voters living within the country."
- "If NVT are used in polling stations, they should not be the exclusive method of voting, as less computer-literate voters may have problems operating NVT systems. In such cases, citizens should be provided with the option to use paper ballots if they wish."
- "While not all aspects of NVT can be directly observed, there are a number of activities that can be observed and which should be open to observers. These include not only the activities of election administrators and vendors in deploying, setting up and modifying the system, but also the activities of certification, testing and audit authorities."
- "Certification requirements or criteria should exist prior to the introduction of the NVT, rather than being tailored to match the NVT system. These requirements should be public and in accordance with relevant national legal provisions and international standards."
- "Electoral constituencies should be drawn in a manner that preserves equality among voters. Thus, the law should require that constituencies be drawn in such a way that each constituency has approximately the same population size."
- "The legal framework should prohibit the collection, use or dissemination of personal data or information in any manner for any purpose other than the exercise of suffrage rights. In particular, care should be given to provisions that relate to fingerprints, photographs and personal identification numbers, as well as to ethnicity or other factors that could lead to discrimination or place the voter at risk of personal harm."
- "An invalid signature should not invalidate other signatures or the signature list."
- "A credible process of signature verification would include the verification of all signatures submitted up to the point when the minimum number of verified signatures required for registration has been reached. Once the minimum number of signatures has been established, the political party or candidate should be registered."
- "Observers should be given unimpeded access to all levels of election administration at all times, effective access to other public offices with relevance to the election process, and the ability to meet with all political formations, the media, civil society and voters. The law should provide clear and precise provisions establishing the rights of observers to inspect documents, attend meetings and observe election activities at all levels, as well as to obtain copies of decisions, protocols, tabulations, minutes and other electoral documents, at all levels."
- "Although it is not possible for the legal framework to prevent violations of the principle of secrecy of the vote in postal voting, it is possible to provide for legal sanctions for violation of the secrecy requirement and to include other provisions to reduce the opportunity to undermine the integrity of the election through fraudulent postal voting."
- "Personal data that are processed must be adequate, relevant, correct and, if necessary, up to date; all reasonable measures must be taken to complete, correct, block or erase data that are incomplete or incorrect."
- "The law must require that the appropriate election-administration body or court consider, determine and render a prompt decision on a complaint. A principle common to many legal systems is that “justice delayed is justice denied”."
- "Civil society is an essential component for the promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law: therefore states should create and maintain a safe and enabling environment in which CSOs can operate free from hindrance and insecurity."
- "Governments must refrain from adopting measures that disproportionately target or burden civil society organizations (CSOs), such as imposing onerous vetting rules, procedures or other CSO-specific requirements not applied to the corporate sector."
- "States should not resort to tax pressure to discourage associations from receiving funds from abroad. Tax exemption and other privileges for associations should be considered positive examples."
- "The Human Rights Council (...) 1. Reaffirms that creating and maintaining a safe and enabling environment in which civil society can operate free from hindrance and insecurity assists States in fulfilling their existing international human rights obligations and commitments, without which equality, accountability and the rule of law are severely weakened, with implications at the national, regional and international levels."
- "The Human Rights Council (...) 5. Urges States to take all steps necessary to prevent threats, attacks, discrimination, arbitrary arrests and detention or other forms of harassment, reprisals and acts of intimidation against civil society actors, to investigate any such alleged acts, to ensure access to justice and accountability, and to end impunity where such violations and abuses have occurred, including by putting in place, and where necessary reviewing and amending, relevant laws, policies, institutions and mechanisms to create and maintain a safe and enabling environment in which civil society can operate free from hindrance, insecurity and reprisals."
- "A vibrant and free civic space with channels for safe and effective participation enables societies to be more peaceful and prosperous. The right to participate in the conduct of public affairs, protected and guaranteed by international law, is a cornerstone of civic space."