Stages of the Investigation Process
for filing an objection,17 the Court found that the complainant might not have
sufficient time to gather or access all potentially available evidence and, therefore, the Commission was obligated to contact the complainant for further
information as part of the triage process.18
The Armenian framework offers protections against summary dismissal
on procedural grounds when a case shows substantive merits:
PROHIBITION OF ABUSE OF FORMAL REQUIREMENTS: In carrying
out administrative action, administrative bodies shall be prohibited
from encumbering persons with obligations or from refusing to
confer certain rights solely for the purpose of observing formal
requirements, where the obligations imposed on them have been
discharged in substance.
ELIMINATION OF ERRORS IN THE FILE RELATED TO ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS: 1. If errors, deletions, scratch‐outs, misprints
are found in the documents submitted by the participants of the
proceedings, the administrative body shall draw the participants’
attention to the documents with the intent of correcting them, or,
the administrative body itself shall correct patent errors and typos
of submitted documents in the presence of the participants of the
proceedings. The administrative body shall not have the right to
refuse receiving such documents solely on the ground that they
contain such errors, deletions, scratch‐outs or misprints. 2. The
provisions of part 1 of this Article do not apply to the correction
of such errors, deletions, scratch‐outs, misprints or elimination of
other documentary defects, if the right to make corrections is reserved by law to the bodies that adopted or issued the documents.19
17
See Electoral Commission Act 51 of 1996 § 65(1) (S. Afr.) (section 65(1) requires that objections must be submitted to
the Independent Electoral Commission by 5:00 pm on the second day after polling day; in addition, complaints to the Electoral
Court, which acts as the final court of appeal, must be submitted within 48 hours of the announcement of results).
18
Inkatha Freedom Party v. Independent Electoral Comm’n 2009 (1) ZAEC 3 at 10–11 (S. Afr.) (stating that the complaint lacked
sufficient detail—namely affidavits from witnesses—to substantiate an objection in a by-election result in KwaZulu-Natal. In
this case, the winning candidate gained only three votes over his opponent, and the objecting party claimed that IEC officials
intimidated voters at the poll).
19
L. Rep. Arm. on Fundamentals of Admin. Action & Admin. Proceedings art. 5, 41 (2004).
27