Chapter 2: Legal Frameworks for Effective Election Complaints Adjudication Systems Complaints Adjudication System: Scope of Authority 1. Election Management Bodies The process of prescribing rules for filing complaints or disputes necessarily raises the important policy questions of where to file and what institution should serve as the point of entry and initial adjudicator. Complaints that dispute the official election outcome as announced by the election management body (EMB) must generally be directed to courts after the election. But in the area of pre-election complaints alleging irregularities in the electoral process or violations of the election laws, election management bodies often play an important preliminary and primary role. Systems that permit complainants to choose between EMBs, other administrative bodies, or local courts to file pre-election complaints (as is often true in new democracies in Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union) run the risk of a duplication of complaints or a dual appeals process, and can even encourage institutional rivalry. Such choices also allow what is called “forum shopping,” which further risks encouraging corruption at the local level.4 EMBs and election officers are given the demanding task of administering elections. Moreover, decisions (or lack of action) by election authorities are often the object of complaints or challenges. Assigning responsibility for all stages of complaints adjudication to the election management structure is thus subject to conflict of interest problems and lack of accountability. However, relying on the judiciary as the sole means of election complaints adjudication directs all election-related complaints and challenges into a system that usually has little familiarity with the implementation of election laws and is inherently slow to act (due to legitimate concerns about due process built into the judicial system, or simply because of case over- Forum shopping is the informal term given to the practice by which complainants seek out the venue or court that is believed to be most likely to provIde them with a favorable judgment for their case. 4 113