690 AFRICAN COURT LAW REPORT VOLUME 1 (2006-2016) “independence” and “impartiality”, it lay with the Court to define the concepts and identify the criteria enabling it to ascertain the existence or otherwise of these two requirements. 7. The Court thus began by quoting the definition of these two concepts as given by doctrine, as follows: “According to the Dictionary of International Public Law, “independence” is the fact of a person or an entity not depending on any other authority than its own or at least, not depending on the State in which he exercises his functions. As for “impartiality”, this is the absence of bias, prejudice and conflict of interest”66 (see paragraph 117 of the judgment). 8. In the following paragraph however, the Court gave a purely formalist and tautological definition of independence. According to the Court, “An electoral body is independent when it has administrative and financial autonomy; and offers sufficient guarantees of its members’ independence and impartiality” (paragraph 118). 9. After referring to Article 1(2) of the Law challenged by the Applicant, which provides that “… the IEC is an independent administrative authority endowed with legal personality and financial autonomy” (paragraph 121), the Court concludes that “… the legal framework governing the Ivorian electoral body leaves room for assumption that the latter is institutionally independent” (paragraph 122). 10. However, the Court does not spell out the content of the said “institutional independence” of the Commission and how this independence differs from “independence” in the proper sense of the term, i.e. independence defined as the Commission’s non-dependence “on any other authority than its own”. The Court merely notes that this “institutional independence” on its own is not enough to guarantee the holding of transparent, free and fair elections as advocated by the African Charter on Democracy and the ECOWAS Democracy Protocol”, and that “the electoral body in place should, in addition, be constituted according to law in a way that guarantees its independence and impartiality, and should be perceived as such” (paragraph 123). 11. After a brief examination of the composition of the Electoral Commission, (paragraphs 124-132), the Court concludes that “the Ivorian electoral body does not meet the conditions of independence and impartiality and cannot be perceived as such”. 12. It is my opinion that the Court’s treatment of this issue of independence and impartiality is inadequate, and that greater clarity would have been achieved, had the treatment been conducted more systematically. I believe, in particular, that it was necessary to make a clear distinction between the independence of the Electoral Commission and its impartiality. I also believe that it was not possible to draw conclusions as to the “institutional independence” of the Electoral Commission solely on the basis of its description under Article 6 The Dictionary of International Public Law defines impartiality more precisely as follows: “Absence of bias, prejudice and conflict of interest in a judge, arbitrator, expert or person in a similar position with respect to the parties before him or in relation to the question he must settle”, Jean Salmon (Dir.), Dictionary of International Public Law, Bruylant/AUF, Brussels, 2001, p. 562.