International Foundation for Electoral Systems between all four of these elements is essential to procedural justice and open justice. These elements are mutually reinforcing and individually required. In working to achieve this balance, adjudicators must respect and uphold all of the principles, and not pick and choose those that they want to focus on or can deal with. In addition, EDR laws and practices should be consistently applied across different types of cases, different complainants, and different jurisdictions, and there should be a focus on what the EDR process produces – not simply the process itself. That is, the process must be set up and administered in such a way that it provides an effective avenue for redress in practice. All of these factors will affect the experience of individuals accessing the EDR process, and general perceptions of the credibility of the process, the body administering it, and the outcomes it produces. As illustrated by the comparative country studies, case management practices and platforms can help strike a balance between the different and interlinked elements of procedural justice and open justice. For example, a case management platform can help adjudicators manage their process to meet deadlines, which can assist with providing an expeditious process and protecting procedural justice; it can help make sure parties have adequate notice of a claim, where the claim resides in the legal system, when hearings will take place, what complaints have been filed, and the ultimate disposition of each case. In addition, as we have seen in several of the countries examined, a case management platform can also support open justice principles by, for example, providing automatic case reports than can be publicly available in a timely manner, and releasing well-reasoned decisions to the public. These practices and platforms should be encouraged and adopted by institutions responsible for resolving electoral disputes. Election arbiters face enormous responsibilities and challenges as election litigation increases. In an intensely political environment, and within the pressured and time-critical context of elections, EDR can often be seen as a last priority, particularly for EMBs who are also shouldering significant election administration responsibilities. It can also be an extremely difficult task to balance all the different components of procedural justice and open justice in a way that ultimately ensures a just and transparent process for all litigants. However, in spite all of this, elections are about fundamental rights, and where there is a right there must be a remedy. As such, the right to vote and to stand for election must be protected by a complaint adjudication process that is fair, efficient, effective and transparent. This will, in turn, provide the EDR body with the public trust and legitimacy necessary to deliver decisions that are respected and – ultimately – contribute to the acceptance of election outcomes. 40