Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections widely as possible.”44 But these guidelines also specify that even if every elector in the constituency and every candidate should have standing to lodge an appeal, “a reasonable quorum may, however, be imposed for appeals by voters on the results of elections. 45 Venice Commission Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters Article 3.3, Paragraph 92 If the electoral law provisions are to be more than just words on a page, failure to comply with the electoral law must be open to challenge before an appeal body. This applies in particular to the election results: individual citizens may challenge them on the grounds of irregularities in the voting procedures. It also applies to decisions taken before the elections, especially in connection with the right to vote, electoral registers and standing for election, the validity of candidatures, compliance with the rules governing the electoral campaign and access to the media or to party funding. Even if near-universal access to legal redress seems to be impossible to implement in practice, the question of broad legal standing was acknowledged in a recent Israeli Supreme Court case. During the campaign period for the January 2003 Sixteenth Knesset (Parliament) elections, the Central Elections Committee disqualified portions of the election campaign broadcasts of Ra’am and Balad, two political parties running for election, on the grounds that the Palestinian flag appeared in them. Although the two political parties did not initiate a claim for redress, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel did. The parties were added to the petition as respondents by the Court. The Attorney General first argued that the petitioner did not have legal standing. However, the Israeli Supreme Court held that, in electoral matters, a public petitioner has legal standing even if the individuals petitioning have not been specifically in- Venice Commission, Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters: GuIdelines and Explanatory Report 31 (2002) [hereinafter Venice Commission Code] (“Standing in such appeals must be granted as wIdely as possible.  It must be open to every elector in the constituency and to every candidate standing for election there to lodge an appeal.   A reasonable quorum may, however, be imposed for appeals by voters on the results of elections.”), available at http://www.venice.coe.int/docs/2002/CDL-AD(2002)023rev-e.asp. 45 Id. 44 22

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