THE GEORGIAN LABOUR PARTY v. GEORGIA JUDGMENT 37 votes from those districts to enable it to overcome the 7% legal threshold. Referring to the relevant statistical data, the Government noted that, in the two previous elections held on 2 November 2003 and 28 March 2004, the applicant party had received only 703 and 600 votes respectively from the two Ajarian districts in question. Consequently, it was inconceivable that the applicant party would have received more than 16,000 votes – the number necessary to have reached the 7% threshold – during the third attempt on 18 April 2004. 2. The applicant party’s submissions 117. The applicant party replied that Article 105 § 3 of the EC should not be interpreted as justifying disfranchisement merely because more than one-third of the total number of voters had been able to cast ballots. The applicant party further noted that, having ousted the local authorities and regained complete control over the Ajarian region on 6 May 2004, there had been nothing to prevent the central authorities from holding another repeat parliamentary election in the Khulo and Kobuleti districts. According to the applicant party, given that voters in those two districts were completely deprived of any opportunity to vote, the very essence of the right to free elections as guaranteed by Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 was impaired. This fact not only breached the principle of universal suffrage but also violated the applicant party’s right to stand for election. 3. The Court’s assessment (a) General considerations 118. The Court notes that the countrywide repeat parliamentary election of 28 March 2004 was finalised by the vote tally of 18 April 2004 without the election having been held in Khulo and Kobuleti, two major electoral districts in the AAR. As a consequence, around 60,000 registered voters in those districts were unable to vote. This number represented approximately 2.5% of registered voters in the country as a whole (see paragraphs 26, 28 and 38 above). 119. The Court considers that the Khulo and Kobuleti voters’ inability to participate in the repeat parliamentary election held under the proportional system has to be questioned under the principle of universal suffrage. It reiterates in this regard that exclusion of any groups or categories of the general population must be reconcilable with the underlying principles of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, including that of universal suffrage (see, mutatis mutandis, Aziz, cited above, § 28). The unjustified departure from the latter principle risks undermining the democratic validity of the legislature thus elected and the laws which it promulgates (see Hirst, cited above, § 62).