CDL-AD(2020)025 D. -8- OSCE 1990 Copenhagen Document and 1991 Moscow Document 27. Paragraph 5.10 of the OSCE 1990 Copenhagen Document27 is also relevant to election dispute resolution as it entitles everyone to “have an effective means of redress against administrative decisions so as to guarantee respect for fundamental rights and ensure legal integrity.” Paragraphs 18.2 and 18.4 of the OSCE 1991 Moscow Document28 are relevant as well, as they call on OSCE participating States to grant to everyone “effective means of redress against administrative decisions, so as to guarantee respect for fundamental rights and ensure legal integrity” and to “provide for judicial review of such regulations and decisions.” IV. Competent bodies 28. Among the issues at stake concerning election dispute resolution systems, there is the question of the bodies competent to adjudicate electoral disputes. Such bodies can be electoral management bodies, constitutional, general, administrative or specialised courts, other types of bodies or a combination of these bodies; this will be developed below. In this respect, election observers and international organisations have in particular raised the following concerns: electoral laws and other relevant laws (including procedural laws and codes) are often confusing, and sometimes conflicting, or lack relevant provisions to establish a clear competency of administrative and/or judicial bodies for resolving the different grounds of disputes. Sometimes, the lines between the types of disputes and the bodies competent to deal with them are blurred or even do not appear in the law. In practice, international experts29 and international election observers in their election observation reports30 have regularly raised the issue of credible complaints left without any legal redress because the complaint had been lodged with a body which denies its competence. A. International standards 29. International standards and in particular the Code of good practice in electoral matters do not recommend a specific model of body competent either in first instance or on appeal, provided that the conflict of jurisdiction is avoided whatever the step of an electoral process challenged. International standards and more specifically the Code of good practice in electoral matters31 recommend that the appeal body in electoral matters should be either an election commission or a court.32 For elections to Parliament, an appeal to Parliament may be provided for in first instance. In any case and whatever the system of adjudication of electoral disputes stipulated in the domestic law, a final appeal to a court must be possible.33 It is also of utmost importance that, as underlined by the Code of good practice in electoral matters, “the appeal procedure and, in particular, the powers and responsibilities of the various bodies […] be clearly regulated by law, so as to avoid conflicts of jurisdiction (whether positive or negative). Neither the appellants nor the authorities should be able to choose the appeal 27 Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, 29 June 1990. Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, 3 October 1991. 29 See 2006 Report on Electoral Law and Electoral Administration in Europe, para. 167. The issue of election results and more broadly of decision-making power will be developed in Part IX of the present report. 30 See for instance the OSCE/ODIHR final report on the 2012 parliamentary elections in Ukraine, which stated: “A significant number of complaints were rejected on procedural grounds, such as being filed with the wrong body” (Section XII - A, page 25). 31 Code of good practice in electoral matters, Guideline II 3.3. a, Explanatory Report, para. 93. 32 Code of good practice in electoral matters, Guideline II. 3.3. a, Explanatory Report, para. 168 and 170. 33 Code of good practice in electoral matters, Guideline II. 3.3. c. Regarding opinions, see for example 2011 Joint opinion on the draft law on presidential and parliamentary elections, the draft law on elections to local governments and the draft law on the formation of election commissions of the Kyrgyz Republic, para. 111. See also 2019 Amicus curiae brief for the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Mugemangango v. Belgium on the procedural safeguards which a state must ensure in procedures challenging the result of an election or the distribution of seats. The European Court of Human Rights partly followed the 2019 Venice Commission’s Amicus curiae brief in its judgment Mugemangango v. Belgium of 10 July 2020; see for instance para. 130-131, 135. 28