Summary
All branches of the government and other public or governmental authorities are responsible for meeting the obligation to give effect to human rights.
Election Parts
Issues
Criteria
- The state took the steps necessary to give effect to rights during the electoral process, including through the dispute resolution process
- The electoral system allowed multiparty participation and actual and equal representation
- The legal framework for elections included the protection of fundamental rights and made international obligations domestically binding
- The electoral management body took steps to implement an electoral process that fulfilled and protected human rights
- All branches of the government are responsible for protecting human rights, including those responsible for administering election processes
Quotes
- The obligations of the Covenant in general and article 2 in particular are binding on every State Party as a whole. All branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial), and other public or governmental authorities, at whatever level - national, regional or local - are in a position to engage the responsibility of the State Party. The executive branch that usually represents the State Party internationally, including before the Committee, may not point to the fact that an action incompatible with the provisions of the Covenant was carried out by another branch of government as a means of seeking to relieve the State Party from responsibility for the action and consequent incompatibility. This understanding flows directly from the principle contained in article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, according to which a State Party 'may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty....In this respect, the Committee reminds States Parties with a federal structure of the terms of article 50, according to which the Covenant's provisions 'shall extend to all parts of federal states without any limitations or exceptions.
- 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.