Guide on Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 – Right to free elections 80. In Antonenko v. Russia (dec.), 2006, a court had banned the applicant from standing in the parliamentary elections the day before the ballot on the grounds that there had been financial irregularities and that the election campaign had been unfair. The applicant did not complain about the actual annulment of his candidature, but about the fact that it had been decided shortly before the polling stations opened. The Court found that the timing in question was compliant with domestic law and had no consequence for a possible appeal, as no further appeal lay against the decision. 81. In Abil v. Azerbaijan (no. 2), 2019, where the applicant had been disqualified from parliamentary elections for alleged early campaigning and vote buying, the Court held that the domestic procedures had not afforded him sufficient safeguards against arbitrariness at any stage of the proceedings. The domestic authorities’ decisions had lacked sufficient reasoning and adequate assessment of the evidence to establish the applicant’s responsibility for the misconduct attributed to him. 82. The Court has also accepted, on a number of occasions, that potential candidates may be excluded on account of the positions held by them. In Gitonas and Others v. Greece, 1997, legislation precluded certain categories of holders of public office – including salaried public servants and members of staff of public-law entities and public undertakings – from standing for election and being elected in any constituency where they had performed their duties for more than three months in the three years preceding the elections: the disqualification would moreover stand notwithstanding a candidate’s prior resignation, unlike the position with certain other categories of public servant. The Court found that this measure served a dual purpose: to ensure that candidates of different political persuasions enjoyed equal means of influence and to protect the electorate from pressure from public officials. The following year, the Court reiterated that restrictions on the participation of specific categories of local government officers in forms of political activity pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the rights of others, council members and the electorate alike, to effective political democracy at the local level. Having regard to the fact that they only operated for as long as the applicants occupied politically restricted posts, the measures remained proportionate (Ahmed and Others v. the United Kingdom, 1998). In Briķe v. Latvia, 2000, the Court added that as the ineligibility of civil servants constituted a proportionate response to the requirement that the civil service be independent, this was all the more true for the ineligibility of judges, the purpose of which was to secure to citizens the rights protected by Article 6 of the Convention. It thus concluded that there had been no impairment of the very essence of the guaranteed rights, as the judge could have resigned from her post in order to stand for election. 83. The case of Dupré v. France (dec.), 2016, concerned the election of two additional French representatives to the European Parliament in 2011, in the middle of the term, following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Among three possibilities the French Government had chosen to have the new MEPs appointed by the National Assembly, from among its members, thus preventing the applicant from standing as a candidate. The Court accepted that this form of appointment had pursued a legitimate aim, in view of the risk of low participation, a high cost for only two seats, and organisational complexity (§ 25). On account of its limited impact, the Court found that the measure was not disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued. 84. However, restrictions on the right to stand for election, even if they pursue a legitimate aim, must not have the result of rendering that right ineffective, either because the conditions are introduced too late or too suddenly, or because they are not clear enough. In Lykourezos v. Greece, 2006, legislation making all professional activity incompatible with the duties of a member of parliament was applied immediately to the current legislature and MPs had to forfeit their seats even though that incompatibility had not been announced prior to their election. There were no grounds of pressing importance that could have justified the immediate application of the absolute disqualification. For the first time the Court relied on the principle of legitimate expectation and thus found a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1. It applied that principle again in Ekoglasnost European Court of Human Rights 21/35 Last update: 30.04.2021