208. Various factors affect the credibility of electoral commissions. Among these special mention should be made of the system for selecting and appointing their members, as well as the procedures for determining liability and ensuring accountability that must be addressed in line with the law. These are analysed in chapter 6 of this Handbook. One effective approach may be to combine an independent EMB with an EDRS entrusted to an independent judicial body, in which challenges begin at the administrative level but parties who are not satisfied with a ruling can challenge it before an independent judicial organ. Several recent electoral legal frameworks have adopted this type of EDRS in an effort to resolve a large number of challenges at the administrative level by binding and enforceable decisions, thereby reducing the need to involve a judicial body. Although it might be considered optimal for such a judicial organ to be a specialized electoral court, as is the case in several countries, such an alternative could hardly be considered viable in many democracies for financial reasons. d) EDR systems entrusted to an ad hoc body 209. Finally, some EDR systems involve an ad hoc body derived from a provisional or transitional arrangement. This might be an institutional solution, often sponsored by international organizations, in order to guarantee the holding of a free, fair and genuine election according to the legal framework following serious conflict in a country, as in Cambodia in 1993, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1996 or Nepal in 2008. The important feature of this type of EDR system is that the mechanism for resolving electoral disputes is provisional in nature: it may be used for a specific election or perhaps more than one, but it is a transitional measure until a permanent EDR system is established. i) An ad hoc body created with international involvement 210. This type of EDR system derives from the creation of an ad hoc body for the resolution of challenges to the conduct and results of an election. This ad hoc body may be the same as the ad hoc body which organizes the election itself, but need not be so. It is a solution sponsored by the international community through one or more international organizations, such as the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) or the Organization of American States (OAS), as part of the process of post-conflict transition. The ad hoc body often includes members designated by an international organization. Its purpose is to ensure that a free, fair and genuine election is held from which no group or sector is excluded. Such bodies contributed to elections in Cambodia in 1993, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1996, Timor-Leste in 2001, and Afghanistan in 2005. 78

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