6 COMMUNIST PARTY OF RUSSIA AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT D. Assessment of the media coverage of the 2003 elections by the OSCE and Transparency International 20. After the elections, several international organisations and NGOs made public statements and issued reports in which they criticised the 2003 parliamentary elections for unequal access of the candidates to the media. Thus, on 27 January 2004 the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (“OSCE/ODIHR”) published its election observation mission final report, where it noted that “the main countrywide State broadcasters displayed favouritism towards United Russia and, in doing so, failed to meet their legal obligation to provide equal treatment to electoral participants, also a fundamental principle of democratic elections”. The report contained the following passages: “The State TV channels fully complied with legal provisions on allocation of free airtime for all contestants. All three State-controlled televisions aired regular debates among political parties and blocs, a positive development that helped voters to form opinions of the candidates ... However, outside of the free airtime, the State broadcasters monitored by the [OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission] openly promoted United Russia ... State-funded broadcasters also produced a number of prime time news discrediting [the first applicant political party] ... In comparison, the private broadcasters ... provided more balanced coverage of the campaign with a greater diversity of views ... The print media provided a plurality of views but mainly supported specific political parties or blocs. As such, voters could form an objective view of the campaign only if they read several publications. State-funded newspapers met the legal requirements in regard to free space for each party or bloc, but were biased in the political and campaign coverage in favour of United Russia and against [the first applicant political party]”. 21. In 2004 a Moscow-based research affiliate of international NGO Transparency International published its report on “the abuse of administrative resources” during the 2003 electoral campaign in which it identified 518 instances of such abuse. That report, which was based on independently conducted media monitoring, concluded that “media resources had been systematically misused throughout the campaign on behalf of United Russia”, and that “the monitoring had clearly documented bias in favour of United Russia in terms of the number of biased individual news items broadcast”. E. Complaints to the administrative authorities and before the courts by the applicants during the electoral campaign 22. On 10 September 2003 Mr Mitrokhin, the then deputy chairperson of the second applicant political party (Yabloko), wrote a complaint to the chairman of the CEC about unfair media coverage of the campaign. In his reply of 29 September 2003 the CEC chairman acknowledged that several