Summary
Procedures for the filing and adjudication of disputes must be understandable and easily accessible to all parties.
Election Parts
Quotes
- 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: 7.2. with regard to legal capacity: (...) 7.2.3. make complaints mechanisms concerning the right to vote clear and accessible to all, irrespective of a person’s legal status.
- 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: 7.2. with regard to legal capacity: (...) 7.2.3. make complaints mechanisms concerning the right to vote clear and accessible to all, irrespective of a person’s legal status.
- States should take measures to ensure that all procedural documents are in a simple form and that the language used is comprehensible to the public and any judicial decision is comprehensible to the parties.
- 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.
- 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.
- In case IDPs are deprived of their political rights, they must be granted access to an effective system of contestation, including complaint and appeal procedures, in the respect of relevant fair trial standards.
- Election dispute resolution must be accessible to all.
- Standard complaint forms, either physical or online, also offer complainants the guidance on the elements required for filing. Developing filing standards that are clear and accessible to all election stakeholders gative bodies in processing complaints impartially and effectively.
- It should be emphasized that, as discussed above, legitimate complaints that are incomplete or do not meet other requirements should not necessarily be dismissed on procedural grounds. Issues of due process should be balanced in the decision to dismiss a case.
- Constitutional, legal and regulatory provisions that oversee controversy or appeals in electoral matters should be drafted in clear and straightforward language to ensure that it is easily understood by stakeholders, observers, and especially by dispute resolution bodies.
- In this context, efficacy means that the formal requirements to lodge an appeal are minimal and do not constitute an obstacle to access justice, nor impede the resolution of the legal dispute in any way.
- An optimal design for an EDR system demands clarity and simplicity. The constitutional, statutory and regulatory provisions for challenges that guarantee compliance with the electoral legal framework and the defence of electoral rights must be drafted in simple and clear language in order to meet the requirements of access to justice and legal certainty. Their content must be broadly disseminated in the language of the community where the election is to be held to ensure that they are transparent and easily understood by all interested persons and consistently followed – especially by the EDRBs.
- It is also important to minimize the formalities required for a challenge to be deemed to have been properly filed.
- ...The availability of such procedures must be open and known to the electorate and the parties.
- The complaints procedure should be transparent and easily understandable. Appropriate forms should be readily available for filing complaints and appeals in the languages used in the country.