Information Note on the Court’s case-law 231
July 2019
Abdalov and Others v. Azerbaijan - 28508/11, 37602/11 and 43776/11
Judgment 11.7.2019 [Section V]
Article 3 of Protocol No. 1
Stand for election
Lack of time for campaigning due to late registration of candidates in parliamentary elections following initial arbitrary refusals to register them and delays in proceedings: violation
Facts – The applicants, candidates in the 2010 parliamentary elections, had been registered late following alleged arbitrary initial decisions refusing to register them as candidates and their subsequent appeals, leaving them with a very short time to conduct their respective electoral campaigns. The first applicant had only one full day to campaign, the second applicant had only three full days, and the third applicant had practically no time left for campaigning.
Law – Article 3 of Protocol No. 1: The applicants’ cases differed from those where the central issue was alleged inequality of treatment of candidates during the electoral campaign or inequality of campaigning opportunities available to registered candidates. The applicants’ ability to campaign had been impaired by a time constraint, which had been a practical consequence of their late registration. The primary issue, therefore, was not, in and of itself, any inequality of treatment or opportunities during the campaign, but whether the applicants’ late registration had adversely affected their individual right to stand freely and effectively for election.
The timely registration of candidates was crucial in order for them to be known to voters and to be able to convey their political message during the electoral campaign period in an effort to gain votes and get elected. The free choice of the electorate depended on, inter alia, having information concerning all eligible candidates, and receiving it in a timely manner in order to form an opinion and express it on election day.
The applicants’ specific situation had to be assessed in the general context of certain systemic issues observed in the Azerbaijani 2010 parliamentary elections stemming from the lack of sufficient safeguards to prevent refusals to register candidates based on arbitrary findings of inauthenticity of supporting signatures. Even though the applicants had eventually been registered after a series of appeals, having regard to the material in the case files, the initial refusals to register the applicants as candidates and the subsequent proceedings, up to the point of the respective decisions granting their appeals, disclosed the existence of those same procedural shortcomings identified in the leading case of Tahirov v. Azerbaijan (31953/11, 11 June 2015, Information Note 186).
The domestic law provided for a maximum three-day period for electoral appeals and a maximum three-day period for the electoral commissions and courts to examine the appeals. At the electoral commission level, the three-day period for examination could be extended for an indefinite duration. With three levels of appeal against an electoral commission decision, the electoral appeal proceedings in cases concerning refusals to register candidates could theoretically take up to eighteen days (and sometimes longer, in situations where the appeal period was extended or where a case was remitted to a lower instance). Since the decision on refusal to register could be delivered as late as on the eve of the official start of the electoral campaign period, the examination of appeals against such decision could take place after the start of the campaign period, as happened in the applicants’ cases. Thus, under this system, a degree of overlap was possible between the period for examination of appeals against refusals to register and the electoral campaign period (fixed at twenty-two days). Consequently, given the possibility of overlap between the time periods allocated for those stages of the electoral process and the reduced length of the electoral campaign period, it was of utmost importance to conduct the appeal proceedings in a timely manner in order to ensure that, should an appellant be successful, he or she would have sufficient time before election day to conduct his or her campaign.
The proceedings in the present cases had been subject to a number of delays attributable to the electoral commissions and the courts, which on several occasions had delivered their respective decisions in a belated manner, sometimes in breach of the three-day limit prescribed by law. The delays in the applicants’ registrations had not been minor. The applicants had been registered so late and so close to election day that they had not had a reasonable amount of time to conduct effective electoral campaigns. The late registration had been due to a lack of safeguards against arbitrariness in the candidate registration procedures and to delays in the examination of their appeals by the electoral authorities and courts. In such circumstances, the applicants’ individual electoral rights had been curtailed to such an extent as to significantly impair their effectiveness.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
The Court also held that there had been a violation of Article 34 due to the seizure of the second and third applicants’ case files from their representative’s office.
Article 41: EUR 7,500 to each applicant in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
(See also Annagi Hajibeyli v. Azerbaijan, 2204/11, 22 October 2015, Information Note 189)
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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