1357 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "The duty to provide reasonable accommodation in accordance with articles 2 and 5 of the Convention can be broken down into two constituent parts. The first part imposes a positive legal obligation to provide a reasonable accommodation which is a modification or adjustment that is necessary and appropriate where it is required in a particular case to ensure that a person with a disability can enjoy or exercise her or his rights. The second part of this duty ensures that those required accommodations do not impose a disproportionate or undue burden on the duty bearer."
- "Because the gradual realization of accessibility in the built environment, public transportation and information and communication services may take time, reasonable accommodation may be used as a means to provide access to an individual in the meantime, as it is an immediate duty."
- "States parties should aim to: (…) (b) Ensure that the electoral process is accessible to all persons with disabilities, including before, during and after elections."
- "States parties should aim to: (…) (c) Provide reasonable accommodation to individual persons with disabilities and support measures based on the individual requirements of persons with disabilities to participate in political and public life."
- " States parties should aim to: (...) (d) Support and engage with representative organizations of persons with disabilities in political participation process at the national, regional and international levels, including by consulting with such organizations in matters that concern persons with disabilities directly."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.3 with regard to combating discrimination against and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities: (...) 7.3.3. provide civic education in accessible formats."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: 7.4.1. ensure physical accessibility of public buildings, including polling stations, national, regional and local parliaments and government buildings, and guarantee that at least one polling station in every election district provides full accessibility."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: (...) 7.4.2. ensure the provision of information about electoral processes, voting procedures and political programmes in accessible formats, including in easy-to-read and easy-to-understand versions, with sign interpretation when required, subtitles for videos and Braille versions; 7.4.3. provide ballot papers in accessible formats and tactile voting devices for blind people in at least one polling station in every election district."
- "Persons with disabilities should not be considered a homogeneous group. Persons with various types of disabilities have different needs and may require different forms of assistance and support."
- "Supported decision-making means that a person can receive the necessary assistance to adopt certain decisions in life, including when exercising the right to vote. Such mechanisms should replace the substituted decision-making ones, providing persons with disabilities with the necessary support to exercise their electoral and political rights without undue limitation."
- "Key electoral information should be made available in multiple, accessible formats, which may include Braille, large print, audio, easy-to-understand versions and sign language. This includes information about how to participate in an election, how to lodge complaints and appeals, results and updates from the election administration."
- "As long as goods, products and services are open or provided to the public, they must be accessible to all, regardless of whether they are owned and/or provided by a public authority or a private enterprise. Persons with disabilities should have equal access to all goods, products and services that are open or provided to the public in a manner that ensures their effective and equal access and respects their dignity."
- "The strict application of universal design to all new goods, products, facilities, technologies and services should ensure full, equal and unrestricted access for all potential consumers, including persons with disabilities, in a way that takes full account of their inherent dignity and diversity."
- "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."
- "When defining accessibility standards, States parties have to take into account the diversity of persons with disabilities and ensure that accessibility is provided to persons of any gender and of all ages and types of disability."
- "The Congress recommends that legal provisions at national level allow IDPs to exercise their right to vote by facilitating the procedures for changing residence and registration on voters’ lists."
- "The enfranchisement of foreigners, at least in the local context, is a major provision of the Council of Europe Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at the Local Level. The Convention directly obliges states to “grant the right to vote and to stand for election in local authority elections” to foreign residents provided that they lawfully and habitually reside in the respective country for at least 5 years preceding the elections – giving also the possibility to shorten such a period of residency. "
- "In order to avoid disenfranchisement and to facilitate the right to return, IDPs may be allowed to vote in their former places of residence, provided that security, legality and transparency of elections can be assured in accordance with international standards and best practices."
- "Along similar lines, standards of the Council of Europe require member states to “grant electoral rights to all their citizens (nationals), without imposing residency requirements”, “to take appropriate legal and practical measures to enable internally displaced persons to effectively exercise their right to vote in national, regional or local elections and to ensure that this right is not infringed by obstacles of a practical nature” and “ to ensure that IDPs can exercise their right to participate in public affairs at all levels, including their right to vote or stand for election, which may require special measures such as IDP voter registration drives, or absentee ballots”."
- "In similar vein, if the procedure for registering as an external elector has to be carried out at an embassy or consulate, the extent and geographical distribution of the country’s network of diplomatic missions overseas and the distance between the diplomatic missions and the regions or zones where the potential electorate resides and/or works could have a negative influence on the coverage of the mechanism for external voting."
- "At each stage of the external electoral process, emphasis must be placed on implementing procedures and processes that are not only faithful to the legislation but also as close as possible to those in place for in-country voters. All electors must have access to a similar registration and polling process, no matter where they are located."
- "There is thus no ‘best procedure’ for external voting. Much will depend on the context, such as the infrastructure of those foreign countries where external voting is to be held. The decision on suitability will depend on the costs and practical aspects of the different procedures for external voting (...)."
- "Entitlement to cast an external vote is usually linked to the general entitlement to vote that applies to all eligible electors in a country. However, there are sometimes extra requirements imposed on external electors, such as a minimum period of previous residence or an intention to return to the country. In some cases only limited groups of external electors may be eligible to vote, such as diplomats, other public officials and members of the armed forces, and their families."
- "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."
- "In most cases it would be appropriate to apply the same level of authentication requirements to registration as an external elector as apply to the normal electoral registration process."
- "The security and control of registration and voting materials require special attention for external voting. Security is as essential externally as it is internally but there is the added challenge of securing sensitive materials during transport to and from several countries."
- "In most cases the duties and responsibilities of countries hosting foreign electoral activity on their soil are minimal, being confined to the role of facilitator rather than that of organizer or implementer. While host countries can assist in the external voting process, their role should not threaten the secrecy of the ballot or the neutrality or transparency of the programme. It is critical that external voting programmes be conducted without political or government influence or interference."
- "One form of gender-targeted public funding that mainly focuses on the broader aim of improving the gender balance in politics is the earmarking of parts of public funding. Political parties can for example be required to use a certain percentage of the public funds they are provided for outreach activities linked to gender equality, in order to increase the role of women in political parties or to develop a gender action plan."
- "A common aim of gender-related public funding is to incentivize political parties to nominate more female candidates by using financial rewards to connect the amount of public funding provided to the level of gender equality among its candidates, regardless of how the parties use these additional funds."
- "Many forms of gender-targeted public funding, however, do not incentivize parties to nominate women in competitive electoral areas. (...) Some countries have sought to overcome this problem by relating the amount of public funding provided to the number of female candidates elected by each political party."
- "The aim of gender-targeted public funding may be to reduce the financial burden for female candidates by ensuring that they receive more money to allow them to compete more effectively in elections, given the gender prejudices within the electorate."
- "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."
- "During electoral campaigns, a competent impartial electoral management body (EMB) or judicial body should be empowered to require private companies to remove clearly defined third-party content from the internet, based on electoral laws and in line with international standards."
- "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 Council of Europe has identified two types of cyberthreats to elections. First, threats to electoral democracy, namely “attacks against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of election computers and data”, compromising voter databases or registration systems; tampering with voting machines to manipulate results; interference with the function of systems on election day; and illegal access to computers to steal, modify, disseminate sensitive data. Second, threats to deliberative democracy, i.e. “information operations with violations of rules to ensure free, fair and clean elections” related to data protection, political finances, media coverage of electoral campaigns and broadcasting and political advertising."
- "Concerning international cooperation, as already stressed under the preceding principle it is necessary to create mechanisms to make the exchange of information and the investigation, prosecution and sanction of illegal conducts related to the subject of democracy and new technologies more efficient."
- "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."
- "For instance, participating States could consider facilitating the efforts of citizens belonging to national minorities to exercise their right to vote by introducing targeted measures to overcome specific difficulties, such as language barriers, including by providing readily accessible information and materials about voting in minority languages in areas inhabited by minorities."
- "While citizenship requirements can be applied in relation to parliamentary elections, participating States are encouraged to provide non-citizens belonging to national minorities with the possibility to vote and to stand as candidates in local elections."
- "Special measures to promote the election of national-minority candidates to public office should be encouraged. For example, experience has shown that lowering the number of supporting signatures required for the registration of candidates from national-minority parties can be an effective special measure. This could also be combined with an exemption from the requirement to surpass a nationwide threshold in proportional representation systems. When determining the size of electoral deposits, contribution and spending limits, eligibility thresholds and other parameters of electoral frameworks, states should consider their impact on the participation of candidates belonging to national minorities and, if needed, take targeted measures to ensure that the right to effective participation of minorities in the electoral processes is not unduly restricted."
- "Ideally, both national and regional thresholds should be low enough to give national-minority parties the chance to have their candidates elected to a national legislature."
- "For example, national-minority parties can be exempted from the need to surpass a legal threshold in order to qualify for seat allocation or can benefit from a lower legal threshold than other parties to obtain representation."
- "While the principle of one person, one vote is one of the most fundamental rules of democratic electoral systems, in some cases a dual voting system can be used to promote representation of minority communities."
- "According to a study by the Venice Commission, dual voting is an exceptional measure that has to be within the legal framework of the constitution and may be permitted if it respects the principle of proportionality in its various aspects. This implies that it can only be justified if: - It is impossible to reach the aim pursued through other less intrusive measures that do not infringe upon equal voting rights; - It has a transitional character; and - It concerns only a numerically small minority."
- "If there is the political will to ensure the representation of such minorities, this can be achieved by introducing special measures through reserved seats. Reserved seats are contested within a minority community and filled by people representing minority communities."
- "Authorities should ensure that IDPs are able to exercise their right to political participation while they are displaced and upon their return or relocation. Various authorities and institutions, including the electoral management body, share the responsibility of ensuring that provisions for registration and voting are established and that these processes are accessible."
- "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."