- 45 - CDL-AD(2020)025 was to ensure the proper functioning of the Latvian institutional system. It added that it was not for the Court to determine the choice of the working language of a national parliament, as that choice was dictated by historical and political considerations and, in principle, was exclusively for the State concerned to determine. Requirements of that kind pursued a legitimate aim. The Court therefore had to decide whether the measure removing the applicant’s name from the list of candidates had been proportionate to the aim pursued. The Court noted that the applicant held a valid language certificate in due form that had been issued by a standing committee following an examination. The standing committee had deliberated and had followed objective marking criteria and a set of rules when voting. Although the authorities had not contested the validity of that document, the applicant had nonetheless been required to sit a further language examination, in company with eight other candidates of the twenty-one who had been required to furnish a certificate of proficiency in the national language. The assessment had been left to the sole discretion of a single official, whose discretionary powers the Court considered to be excessive. The Court also expressed surprise that, according to the applicant in an account that was not disputed by the Government, the official had questioned the applicant about the reasons for her political affinities. Consequently, the Court considered that, in the absence of any objective guarantees, the procedure followed in the applicant’s case was incompatible with the procedural requirements of fairness and legal certainty for determining eligibility for election. That conclusion was, in the Court’s view, supported by the fact that when examining the applicant’s application for judicial review the Riga Regional Court had only had regard to the certificate issued as a result of the impugned examination and had accepted those results as incontrovertible. The Court accordingly held that there had been a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1. (b) Respect of those safeguards in practice Any safeguard written into a legislative act is meaningless if it merely remains on paper, as it does when the competent domestic authorities, charged with conducting the electoral procedures, systematically fail to abide by those safeguards in situations for which they are designed. It is a fundamental corollary of the rule of law that rights prescribed in legislative acts must be effective and practical, and not theoretical and illusory.197 Specific case: In Tahirov v. Azerbaijan (no. 31953/11, 11 June 2015) the applicant complained about the refusal of his request for registration as a parliamentary election candidate. As required by the Electoral Code, he collected more than 450 voter signatures in support of his candidacy and submitted them to the Constituency Electoral Commission (“the ConEC”). He was informed that the validity of his supporting signatures had been examined and that the ConEC had held a hearing on whether to register him as a candidate. The next day his candidacy was refused. According to an expert working group established by the commission, a number of signatures were invalid, allegedly because several signatures had been executed by the same person or because the information on the relevant voters’ addresses was incomplete. The applicant lodged a complaint with the CEC arguing in particular that, following the requirements of the Electoral Code, he should have been invited to participate in the examination process of the signatures. The applicant further alleged that the finding that 172 signatures had been “executed by the same person” had not been factually verified and that he could have rectified the incomplete addresses of some of the voters if he had been given the opportunity. Enclosed with his complaint, the applicant notably submitted written statements by 91 voters, whose signatures had been declared invalid, affirming the 197 See Tahirov v. Azerbaijan, no. 31953/11, § 67, 11 June 2015.