- 13 - CDL-AD(2020)025 municipality or a directorate of a ministry for instance – were competent to judge on complaints on decisions or actions or inactions done by its own administration/employees. There is still a minority of countries where such complaints go to ad hoc committees or municipalities’ councils or similar bodies. As raised earlier, if in principle nothing prevents from exercising such a right to challenge a decision, action or inaction before other bodies than election commissions or courts, an ad hoc committee and even more an elected body do not seem to be the appropriate instances to deal with election-day related issues. d. Competent bodies regarding election results61 44. Regarding the sensitive issue of election results, most of the countries provide in the law the possibility to partially or fully invalidate election results – and sometimes correct election results or ask for a total or partial recount. It would be suitable for such decisions to be taken by the highest electoral body – including the central election authority of the country62; its decision should be reviewable by the highest judicial body or the Constitutional Court or a specialised electoral court when such a judicial body exists. 45. In 31 countries, the Constitutional Court, the highest judicial body or a specialised electoral court, is the body competent to review election results.63 On the contrary, there are nine countries where the competent body to review the decision about the confirmation or cancellation of election results is a court but not the highest court.64 There are also nine countries where the decision to partially or fully invalidate election results is assigned to the parliament.65 Seven of them do not allow a judicial appeal on the parliament’s decision to validate election results.66 In this respect, the European Court of Human Rights underlines in its case-law that decisions by the parliament affecting the distribution of parliamentary seats, without the possibility of appeal to a judicial body, may constitute a breach of the right to an effective remedy in Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights in conjunction with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1.67 In this respect, the European Court of Human Rights stated The issue of election results and the possibility to challenge them is developed in Part IX – B of the present report. 62 Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Norway, the Netherlands, Peru, San Marino, Sweden, Turkey. 63 Albania (Constitutional Court), Algeria (Constitutional Council), Andorra (Administrative Chamber of the Higher Court of Justice), Armenia (Constitutional Court, appeals against the decisions of the Central Election Commission and complaints related to election results), Austria (Constitutional Court, cases related to numerical calculations), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Appellate Division of the Court), Bulgaria (Constitutional Court), Brazil (Regional Electoral Court), Canada (Federal Court), Costa Rica (Supreme Electoral Tribunal), Chile (Regional Electoral Court), Croatia (Constitutional Court, shared with the State Electoral Commission), the Czech Republic (Supreme Administrative Court), Estonia (Supreme Court, shared with the Electoral Commission), France (Constitutional Council), Germany (Federal Constitutional Court), Hungary (Supreme Court; there is a possibility to lodge a constitutional complaint to the Constitutional Court challenging the constitutionality of the decision of the Supreme Court (Kúria). However the Constitutional Court has the competence only to annul the decision but not to modify the election results), Republic of Korea (Supreme Court), Liechtenstein (State Court), Malta (Constitutional Court), Mexico (Electoral Court), Montenegro (Constitutional Court), Morocco (Constitutional Court), Poland (Supreme Court), Portugal (Constitutional Court), Romania (High Court of Cassation and Justice), Slovak Republic (Constitutional Court) (cases related to election results), Serbia (Administrative Court), Spain (Supreme Court, Constitutional Court: appeals for protection against violation of fundamental rights – “recursos de amparo”), Ukraine (Supreme Court), United Kingdom (Election Court). Regarding opinions and reports, see for instance 2009 Report on the cancellation of election results, para. 39-41. 64 Georgia, Luxembourg, Latvia, Republic of Moldova (where the Constitutional Court is authorised to certify the results of Parliamentary Elections, and to confirm the legality of mandates of the elected deputies), Monaco, North Macedonia, Russian Federation (the electoral law mentions “a court” as the competent body to review invalidation of electoral results), Tunisia, the United States of America. 65 Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, partially Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland (shared with the Supreme Federal Tribunal). 66 Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway. Regarding opinions, see for example 2010 Joint opinion on the electoral legislation of Norway, para. 38. 67 As for the European Court of Human Rights on this issue, see Grosaru v. Romania, 2 March 2010, and Paunović and Milivojević v. Serbia, 24 May 2016. In these decisions, the Court found a breach of Article 3 Protocol 1 as well as a lack of effective remedy according to Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Both cases 61