THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF RUSSIA AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 11 It follows that there have been no violations of electoral law which would prevent the genuine will of the voters from being ascertained ... [The OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission report] likewise does not contain [information about] those violations ... The applicants’ action for invalidation of the election results cannot therefore be allowed”. In respect of the episode of 7 December 2003 (reporting on Mr Putin’s voting, see paragraph 19 above) the Supreme Court held as follows: “... The Supreme Court cannot accept the applicants’ contention that there was unlawful electoral campaigning for United Russia on the part of the President of Russia on election day. Thus, having examined during the hearing a video recording of the Channel One items reporting on Mr Putin casting his vote in the Duma elections, the Supreme Court has established that the President of Russia refused to tell the journalist who he voted for. He did not mention any political party, which could have been classified as campaigning. It follows that there have been no violations of electoral law which would prevent the genuine will of the voters in the elections from being ascertained ... and could be a ground for invalidating the CEC’s decision approving the outcome of the ballot ...” 36. The applicants appealed. They argued that the first-instance court had examined only a minor part of the evidence adduced by them, in particular around 5 per cent of transcripts and less than 1.5 per cent of video recordings. According to the applicants, that approach violated the principle of direct examination of evidence. The applicants further disagreed with other findings of the first-instance court. 37. On 7 February 2005 the Supreme Court, sitting as a court of appeal, composed of Justices Fedin, Potapenko and Tolcheyev, dismissed their appeal. The Supreme Court observed, most notably, the following: “The arguments contained in the grounds of appeal are unpersuasive. Having examined transcripts for four days (3 and 5 to 7 September 2009) and having heard the parties’ representatives, the [first-instance] court made a decision on the basis of its examination of the evidence adduced. It decided to examine transcripts for the days proposed by the parties [to the proceedings] within the limits defined by the court. This method of examination of evidence did not violate the principle of equality of the parties. It allowed each of them to propose for examination their main transcripts capable of proving clearly, in their view, the violations of electoral law or absence thereof. The court accordingly proceeded to examine transcripts for eight days proposed by the applicants (20 September, 5, 20 and 31 October, 4, 18 and 28 November and 5 December) and for two days proposed by the CEC representatives (27 September and 3 December). Additionally, the court examined the transcript and the videotape of election day, that is, 7 December 2003. Overall, the court examined recordings of five main television channels for 14 days, that is, 13.4 per cent of those submitted.