20 COMMUNIST PARTY OF RUSSIA AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT possibility of lodging a criminal-law complaint with the prosecution authorities, or bringing a defamation claim before a court. 68. Lastly, the Government argued that the applicants’ criticism of the proceedings before the Supreme Court was unfounded. The Supreme Court had indeed not reviewed each and every item of information provided by the applicants, but to examine all of them would have required at least 100 days of court hearings. The law on civil procedure permitted the courts to examine samples of evidence where that evidence was uniform in nature. In all, the Supreme Court had examined transcripts covering 14 days of the electoral campaign, or 13.4 per cent of the information produced by the parties (see paragraph 37 above). Further, having reviewed the public statements made by the then President Putin (see paragraphs 18 and 19 above), the Supreme Court did not consider that they contained any campaigning in favour of United Russia. In the course of the proceedings the applicants had lodged several procedural applications, some of which had been granted by the Supreme Court and others refused. The evidence examined at the hearings before the Supreme Court had been sufficient to make conclusive findings. The parties in the present case had had ample opportunities to present their case, which had been examined in fair proceedings. (d) Compliance with the six-month rule 69. In the alternative, the Government argued that the applicants had failed to comply with the six-month time-limit provided for in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. The Government argued that the mass media, in particular the broadcasting companies, had defined their editorial policy independently from the State. Since the applicants had chosen not to sue the broadcasting companies for breaches of their right to equal media coverage, the six-month time-limit had to be calculated from the date when the alleged violations of the applicants’ rights had taken place. The application to the Court had been introduced on 1 August 2005, that is, one year, seven months and eleven days after the alleged violations had taken place (on 19 December 2003, when the CEC had confirmed the results of the elections). 2. The applicants’ submissions (a) The Court’s competence ratione materiae 70. The applicants argued that the Court had competence ratione materiae to examine their complaints. As the Court’s case-law showed, the freedom to form an opinion was an integral part of the guarantee of free elections and was therefore covered by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1.