ORLOVSKAYA ISKRA v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 35 110. The Court also reiterates that the rights guaranteed by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 are crucial to establishing and maintaining the foundations of an effective and meaningful democracy governed by the rule of law (see Hirst v. the United Kingdom (no. 2) [GC], no. 74025/01, § 58, ECHR 2005-IX). Free elections and freedom of expression, particularly freedom of political debate, together form the bedrock of any democratic system (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt v. Belgium, 2 March 1987, § 47, Series A no. 113, and the Lingens v. Austria judgment of 8 July 1986, Series A no. 103, §§ 41–42). The two rights are inter-related and operate to reinforce each other: for example, freedom of expression is one of the “conditions” necessary to “ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature” (see Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt, cited above, § 54). For this reason, it is particularly important in the period preceding an election that opinions and information of all kinds are permitted to circulate freely. In the context of election debates, the unhindered exercise of freedom of speech by candidates has particular significance (see Kudeshkina v. Russia, no. 29492/05, § 87, 26 February 2009). 111. In certain circumstances the rights under Article 10 of the Convention and Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 may come into conflict and it may be considered necessary, in the period preceding or during an election, to place certain restrictions, of a type which would not usually be acceptable, on freedom of expression, in order to secure the “free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature”. In Mathieu-Mohin and Clerfayt, cited above, §§ 52 and 54, the Court recognised that the Contracting States have a wide margin of appreciation with regard to their electoral systems. Referring to this, in Bowman (cited above, § 43) the Court stated that, in striking the balance between the rights under Article 10 of the Convention and Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, the Contracting States have a margin of appreciation, as they do generally with regard to their electoral systems. More recently, in a case concerning advertisement of a political nature, the Court stated that the political nature of the advertisements that were prohibited called for strict scrutiny and a correspondingly circumscribed national margin of appreciation with regard to the need for the restrictions. The Court did not find it appropriate in that case to attach much weight to the various justifications for allowing States a wide margin of appreciation with reference to Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. Otherwise, the application of this provision would be left to the discretion of the Contracting States to a degree that might lead to results incompatible with the privileged position of free political speech under Article 10 of the Convention (see TV Vest AS and Rogaland Pensjonistparti, cited above, §§ 64 and 66). 112. Lastly, the Court reiterates that it is not for it to express a view on the appropriateness of the methods chosen by the legislature of a respondent State to regulate a given field. Its task is confined to determining whether