(cont.)
video conferencing tools allow faster conduct of hearings. The same mechanism allows
stakeholders to propose witnesses or withdraw their case. This system required
the Constitutional Court to adopt new security measures to verify the identity of
complainants and witnesses who interact online. Above all, the expeditiousness of
these proceedings is accompanied by an unprecedented degree of transparency, which
in the past proved difficult to achieve within short timelines in such a vast country.
The successful cases of Brazil and Indonesia raise the issue of whether the administration
of electoral justice by electronic means could become a complete substitute for
traditional proceedings across the world. Will the traditionally golden principles of oral
evidence in public and the immediacy of proceedings soon be redundant? More than
that, e-justice applications in electoral matters could shake one of the central axioms
of ICT applied to elections: that technological investment cannot make up for a lack
of trust in the institutions administering the process. While this dilemma deserves
careful consideration and continued research in the other disciplines of law, the notion
of electronic justice certainly has additional appeal in the administration of electoral
disputes. Electoral law is arguably the most political of all the branches of law, and
the administration of electoral justice often suffers from this underlying tenet. The
balance between time-effectiveness and accuracy that electoral justice authorities
must always strike is affected by political factors that often have very little to do with
the principles of the rule of law or due process. In this respect, the vast possibilities
offered by ICT applications in the administration of electoral justice, especially in terms
of the transparency of actions, access to information, effectiveness and the timeliness
of the possible remedy, should be viewed as powerful motivations for the digitalization
of electoral justice.
4. Procedural guarantees of electoral dispute resolution
systems
339. Procedural guarantees are those elements or attributes which foster and
safeguard electoral justice and have as the basic aim the effective and efficient
operation of an EDR system.
340. Procedural guarantees are normally put in place to ensure that the
proceedings of an EDRS (trials or hearings, remedies and, in general, the
handling of any challenges) are accessible, effective and efficient. Any proceeding
must be accessible to those who seek the protection or defence of their
electoral rights, that is, free of charge or with charges are not onerous; simple
in its procedures; expeditious and timely in offering a safeguard or restoring an
electoral right or, in a general sense, restoring the electoral legal framework
before it becomes irreparable; and respects the essential formalities that should
be found in any judicial proceeding – corresponding to the nature of the
electoral right that a challenge seeks to protect.
118