Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 99
July 2007
Krasnov and Skuratov v. Russia - 17864/04
Judgment 19.7.2007 [Section I]
Article 3 of Protocol No. 1
Stand for election
Disqualification of election candidates because of alleged errors in information they had been required to submit on their employment status and party affiliation: no violation; violation
Facts: The applicants complained that they had been disqualified from standing in the general elections to the State Duma because they had submitted inaccurate information in their applications for registration as candidates. The first applicant was accused of claiming to be head of a district council of the Presnenskiy District of Moscow when he no longer held that post. The second applicant was alleged to have declared that he was acting Head of the Law Department at a State university whereas he had been transferred to a post of professor in the same department. He was also accused of not having adduced evidence of his membership of the Communist Party in the correct form. Ultimately, neither applicant took part in the elections.
Law: Legitimate aim – Requiring a candidate for election to the national parliament to submit truthful information on their employment and party affiliation enabled voters to make an informed choice with regard to the candidate’s professional and political background and thus constituted a legitimate aim.
Proportionality – (a) The first applicant – The Court found that the first applicant had knowingly submitted untrue information on his employment. As a candidate for election in the same district, the information whether or not he remained the head of the district council was not a matter of indifference to the voters, all of whom were local residents. By withholding information on his discharge, the first applicant had cloaked himself in the authority associated in the voters’ eyes with a position he no longer held and may therefore have adversely affected their ability to make an informed choice. As he had deliberately submitted substantially untrue information capable of misleading the voters, the decision as to his ineligibility was not disproportionate.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
(b) The second applicant – As regards the allegedly incorrect information about his employment, the findings of the domestic authorities were inconsistent inter se and not founded on any relevant legal provision or case-law interpreting the statutory requirements. The impugned measure did not therefore appear to have met the requisite standard of “lawfulness” and “foreseeability”. Indeed, in the view of independent observers of the election, the ruling on his application had “suggested an inconsistent and selective application of the registration rules”. In any event, it could not be seriously maintained that the difference between the positions of professor and acting head of the same department was capable of misleading the voters. The fact that the second applicant was a well-known public figure in another capacity also made his current academic position of lesser relevance.
As to the evidence of his membership of the Communist Party, here too the domestic authorities’ interpretation of the legislation did not meet the Convention standard of “lawfulness” and “foreseeability”. Further, it had never been claimed that the second applicant was not a member of the Communist Party, so that it could not be argued that the decision on his ineligibility, in so far as it was founded solely on the alleged formal defect in the membership certificate, was taken with the aim of preventing voters from forming misconceptions about his political leanings.
The domestic authorities’ decision on the second applicant’s ineligibility was thus disproportionate as it was not based on relevant and sufficient reasons and did not accord with the undisputed facts.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – Award of EUR 8,000 to the second applicant in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy