THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF RUSSIA AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 21 (b) Victim status 71. The applicants maintained that Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 guaranteed the right to stand for election irrespective of the outcome of the ballot and regardless of whether the candidate ultimately won or lost. The existence of a violation was conceivable even in the absence of prejudice. The fact that some of the applicants had obtained seats in the Duma did not affect their status as victims. The Government’s argument regarding the funding of political parties following the 2003 elections was irrelevant. (c) Exhaustion of domestic remedies and compliance with Article 13 of the Convention 72. The applicants maintained that they had had recourse to all available domestic remedies relating to the substance of their complaints; however, all of them had either been ineffective ab initio, or proved to be ineffective in practice. 73. The applicants started by describing their attempts to obtain a decision of the CEC and the Working Group condemning unfair media coverage of the elections. Although those bodies had acknowledged that there had been unequal reporting, no practical steps had been taken in that connection. The CEC Working Group did not have sufficient powers to reinstate the rights of the candidates who had been victims of inadequate press coverage; it could only make recommendations. As to the CEC itself, it was common practice for that body to issue, in response to a complaint about violations of electoral rights, letters signed by one of the CEC members and approved by the rest of the members, without drawing up an official record or making a separate decision on the complaint. Such letters were procedurally inadequate documents that were substitutes for normal decisions made by the CEC sitting in regular meetings as a collegial body. Naturally, the courts did not accept appeals against such “letters”, which did not constitute either “act” or “omission” within the meaning of the domestic law. The only response from the CEC chairman had been to send inarticulate warning letters to broadcasters. The CEC had not initiated any administrative proceedings against those involved in unlawful campaigning. Where the CEC exercised its statutory power to interpret electoral law, including the adoption of regulations (section 26(5) of the Duma Elections Act), it always did so in a manner most convenient for the authorities and the United Russia party. 74. Regarding an administrative-law complaint, the applicants argued that it was not on account of their failure to have recourse to that remedy that no administrative proceedings had been brought. In fact, the applicants had complained to the prosecution authorities, the CEC and the Ministry of Mass Media on at least six occasions, asking for administrative proceedings to be initiated against the directors of Channel One and VGTRK, as well as their individual journalists, on account of their biased coverage of the