8 YUMAK AND SADAK v. TURKEY JUDGMENT “In order to be able to take part in an election, a political party must have a seat in at least half the provinces and have held its general meeting at least six months before polling day, or must have a group within the Grand National Assembly.” 37. Section 81 of Law no. 2820 provides: “Political parties are not entitled to assert that there exist within the territory of the Republic of Turkey minorities based on a race, religion, sect, culture or language.” 38. Under the relevant legislation the name of independent candidates is not printed on the voting slips provided near the Turkish borders. That means that Turkish electors resident abroad may vote for only a political party when using the ballot boxes placed at border crossing-points or large airports. Similarly, whereas political parties have time allocated on television and radio for electioneering broadcasts, independent candidates do not. 3. Constitutional case-law 39. The Constitutional Court’s case-law on the compatibility of electoral thresholds with the principle of a democratic State has been contradictory. 40. At first, in a judgment delivered on 6 May 1968 (E. 1968/15, K. 1968/13), the Constitutional Court held to be contrary to the principle of a democratic State the “ordinary threshold” introduced by Parliament in order to correct the effects of the proportional representation system. This is a threshold which varies in accordance with the number of seats to be filled in each parliamentary constituency. The threshold applied in a constituency is calculated by dividing the number of votes cast by the number of seats to be filled, and seats are awarded only to candidates who pass it. The Constitutional Court held in particular that such a threshold, which could enable the representatives of a minority of electors to form a government, was likely to hinder the representation of all currents of thought. 41. Later, after the adoption of the 1982 Constitution, the Constitutional Court gave its views on the question of electoral systems in a judgment delivered on 1 March 1984 (E. 1984/1, 1984/2), ruling as follows: “The first paragraph of Article 67 of the Constitution provides that citizens are entitled to vote and stand for election in accordance with rules laid down by law. However, it does not grant an unlimited margin of appreciation to the legislature. By virtue of Article 67, elections are conducted under the administration and scrutiny of the judicial power and according to the principles of free, equal, secret and universal suffrage in a single ballot, the votes being counted and recorded in public. Provided those rules are complied with, the legislature may therefore adopt whatever electoral system it deems most appropriate. If the constituent assembly had had a particular system in mind, it would have adopted a binding rule. As it did not do so, the legislature is free to adopt the system it considers best adapted to the country’s political and social conditions ...