Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 97

May 2007

Georgian Labour Party v. Georgia (dec.) - 9103/04

Decision 22.5.2007 [Section II]

Article 3 of Protocol No. 1

Free expression of opinion of people

Alleged misadministration of electoral rolls, presidential control over electoral commissions and finalisation of country-wide vote tally without elections having been held in two districts: admissible

Article 35

Article 35-3

Abuse of the right of petition

Leader of applicant party apologises to the Court for having distorted information about the Strasbourg proceedings: Government's objection dismissed

Ratione personae

Political party not actually affected by contested elections: inadmissible

In November 2003 regular parliamentary elections were held under both majority (single-mandate constituencies) and proportional systems. In the second of these voting systems, finalised by the vote tally of the Central Electoral Commission, the applicant party received 12% of the votes cast, which corresponded to 20 out of the 150 seats in Parliament reserved for candidates from party lists. The newly elected Parliament convened, but was ousted by the “Rose Revolution” forces at its first session. Later on, the Supreme Court annulled the vote tally as far as the election results under the proportional system were concerned. The results in single-seat constituencies remained in force. Repeat elections were scheduled for March 2004. According to the applicant party, on the eve of those elections, the newly elected President of Georgia declared in mass media that he would not allow its presence in Parliament. Following different complaints about irregularities, the Central Electoral Commission annulled the election results for the two electoral districts in the Autonomous Republic of Ajaria and ordered second repeat elections to be held there. On the election date in April 2004 polling stations in those two districts failed to open. On the same day, the Central Electoral Commission tallied the country-wide parliamentary election votes cast in March and formally confirmed that the applicant party had received 6% of the vote. This was not enough to clear the 7% threshold and thus to obtain seats in Parliament. The applicant party's appeal to the Supreme Court was dismissed. In proceedings before the Constitutional Court the chairperson of the applicant party later challenged t