CAAMAÑO VALLE v. SPAIN JUDGMENT (d) The parties’ comments on the Commissioner’s intervention 49. The applicant agreed with the Commissioner that the rights under the Convention of persons with disabilities should be interpreted in the light of the CRPD, and emphasised that Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, read in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 12, should be interpreted as guaranteeing the right to vote of persons with disabilities, without exception and on an equal basis. 50. The Government reiterated that the role of the Court consisted of guaranteeing minimum common standards of protection of human rights – not legislating or harmonising legislation. They noted that Article 29 of the CRPD did not specify that any person with disabilities had the right to vote, but it did specify that persons who were entitled to vote should be furnished with sufficient means to enable them to exercise that right. The Government asserted in this regard that Spain provided all the means necessary to enable disabled persons to exercise their right to vote and their right to stand for election and to undertake public duties. 51. The Government emphasised that the Spanish legal system provided everyone reaching the age of eighteen automatically acquired the right to vote. Disenfranchisement could only be effected by a judge after the lodging of a request by an interested party (that is to say a parent, guardian or public prosecutor); under the relevant law, not all types of intellectual or psychosocial disabilities constituted grounds for disenfranchisement – only when they were persistent and so serious that the person in question was not able to take care of himself or herself unaided; a decision to disenfranchise a person was to be taken by a judge in a procedure in which all due guarantees would be observed, and which would be subject to judicial review at a minimum of three levels of jurisdiction and subject to review in the event that the relevant circumstances changed. 2. The Court’s assessment (a) The interpretation of the Convention in the light of relevant rules and principles of international law 52. Despite its specific character as a human rights instrument, the Convention is an international treaty that is to be interpreted in accordance with the relevant standards and principles of public international law and, in particular, in the light of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 23 May 1969. Pursuant to the Vienna Convention, the Court must establish the ordinary meaning to be given to terms within their context and in the light of the object and purpose of the provision from which they are taken. Thus, the Court has never considered the provisions of the Convention to constitute the sole framework of reference for the interpretation of the rights and freedoms enshrined therein. On the contrary, it must also take into account any relevant rules and principles of international law applicable in 18