MÓŁKA v. POLAND DECISION 3 wheelchair was also impossible as [my] battery-powered wheelchair weighed, together with myself, about 200 kg and was not portable. As the number of physically handicapped persons in Poland is 5 million, one can assume that my case was not isolated and that making it impossible for handicapped persons to vote by not preparing polling stations for them could have had a fundamental impact on the turnout and the results of the elections.” In a letter of 20 October 1998 the Nowy Sącz Regional Court asked the applicant whether his complaint concerned the validity of the elections or whether he requested amendments to the relevant law. On 26 October 1998 the applicant informed the Regional Court that his electoral complaint resulted from the fact that he had been deprived of his right to vote in the elections held on 11 October 1998. The applicant referred to section 5 of the Local Elections Act, which stated that every Polish citizen had a right to vote. On 30 October 1998 the Nowy Sącz Regional Court refused to consider the applicant’s electoral complaint. The court was of the view that it did not fall within “the scope of the subject matter” of an electoral complaint. On 23 November 1998 the applicant appealed against that decision to the Cracow Court of Appeal (Sąd Apelacyjny). On 5 January 1999 the Court of Appeal allowed the applicant’s appeal, quashed the decision of 30 October 1998 and remitted the case to the Nowy Sącz Regional Court. On 12 March 1999 the Nowy Sącz Regional Court dismissed the electoral complaint lodged by the applicant. The court observed that the applicant had assumed that a ballot paper would be handed to him and cast by his mother. However, he had been advised by the Chairman of the Local Electoral Commission and the Municipal Electoral Commission that this was not permissible under the Local Elections Act. Moreover, the applicant had not considered the possibility of entering the polling station with the assistance of third persons on a stretcher or in a wheelchair as he had felt that it would have been embarrassing and degrading for him. The court further considered that: “The complainant’s general claim that ‘the organisers of the elections’ should have provided him with the possibility of entering the polling station ... does not fall within the legal scope of an electoral complaint ... since none of the provisions of the Local Elections Act imposes such an obligation on the electoral commissions – on the contrary, section 46 of the Act excludes such help. Each disability is in itself restricting in different fields of private and public life. It makes it difficult for a handicapped citizen to enjoy his rights. The public authorities are not in position to eliminate all those difficulties. [There] is no statutory or higher provision requiring such [elimination] – even if those provisions concern handicapped persons (Article 69 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and Article 14 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ... which is part of our legal system, and Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention ...).