organs or political assemblies became the general practice in the democratic regimes that emerged during the 19th century and a good part of the 20th. 155. The historical justification for entrusting the EDR system to a legislative organ is based on the principle of the separation of powers, according to which each branch of government is independent of the other and should not therefore become involved in decisions that affect the composition of the others. In particular, it was considered a defensive weapon in the hands of the legislature against the executive in order to ensure its autonomy and independence. It seeks to avoid tarnishing the judicial branch, which would be dragged into partisan political struggle to the detriment of its essential function – that of resolving cases on a technical-legal basis. Moreover, those who tend to favour entrusting the EDRS to the legislative organ use the non-democratic nature of most judicial bodies to argue that the decisions of such bodies should not prevail over the decisions of the legislature. 156. A fundamental characteristic of EDRSs that are entrusted to legislative organs or political assemblies is that, although they are governed by the constitutional and statutory framework applicable to a particular election, given their composition and their inclination to act politically – as no legal mechanisms are provided to verify that their decisions are lawful – it is common for political criteria such as opportunism or the negotiation of conflicting interests to prevail over legal considerations in the decision making. Such decisions have tended to favour the political forces that have come to constitute the legislative majority. It was the abuses committed by the respective legislatures in certifying the election of their own members that were among the most influential reasons for transferring jurisdiction in the UK in 1868 and in France in 1958 to judicial bodies, in the final instance, over the question of the validity of legislative elections. Box 5.3. An EDR system: legislative abuses in France before 1958 From 1958, the system for verifying the powers entrusted to the political assembly in France was modified and jurisdiction was vested in the Constitutional Council (Conseil Constitutionnel). The powers entrusted to the political assembly dated back to the Estates General. Although abolished by the Consulate and during the Empire, they were re-established in 1814–15 as a sign of independence of the Chamber and they acquired constitutional status under the Third Republic. However, abuses led to the system being discredited from around 1940. Nonetheless, the Constitution of the Fourth Republic of 27 October 1946 retained Article 8, establishing that ‘Each of the two Chambers is judge of the eligibility of its members and of the regularity of their election’. This led to a breakdown of the system of verification of powers by the chambers. The assemblies that existed from 1946 to 1958 often acted without respect for legality, and there were obvious contradictions in the decisions they reached as 64