International Foundation for Electoral Systems As this table illustrates, institutional arrangements for addressing electoral disputes vary significantly among countries, and the types of case management platforms in use are similarly variable. Even in Mexico, which, as will be discussed further below, has the most extensive and established case management platform of these six countries, adoption at the sub-national level is recent and ongoing. The variety and complexity of EDR processes presents a challenging landscape for comparative evaluation of procedural justice and open justice protections, and the case management practices and platforms that support them. However, the value of these case studies is capturing details of complex procedures and practices in a comparative context that enables similarities, opportunities and challenges to emerge. Ultimately, these comparative country studies provide useful examples that illuminate how different country contexts and different EDR models are faring in providing disputes resolutions proceedings that are fair, efficient, effective and transparent. V. Protecting Procedural Justice and Open Justice in Election Cases The following four sections explore the principles behind each aspect of procedural justice and open justice defined earlier in this paper – fairness, efficiency, effectiveness and transparency – and illustrate how these principles are addressed in each case study country. These examples by no means represent an exhaustive exploration of all aspects of each country’s EDR processes, but they do reveal the ways in which the successes and shortcomings of case management serve or hinder procedural justice and open justice. Fairness Fair administration of justice includes the right to receive reasonable notice of a claim, reasonable opportunity to prepare a defense, and the right to a fair and impartial fact-finding process, hearing, and decision. Fair administration of justice is required to protect the fundamental right to equality before the law and equal treatment by the law. How justice is actually administered is also critical to overall perceptions of the fairness of the process and the institution in question. In discussing the administration of justice in cases involving human rights, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has emphasized both equal treatment by justice institutions60 and equal access to the institutions mandated to provide justice.61 This right to access the courts is further affirmed in a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) opinion in the 60 This is often termed “equality of arms,” a jurisprudential principle developed by the European Court of Human Rights as a component of the right to a fair trial. Essentially, it requires that there be a fair balance between the opportunities afforded to each party involved in legal proceedings. 61 OHCHR, Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers,” (2003) Chapter 6, 218, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/training9chapter6en.pdf. “The principle of equality before the courts means in the first place that…every person appearing before a court has the right not to be discriminated against either in the course of the proceedings or in the way the law is applied to the person concerned…Secondly, the principle of equality means that all persons must have equal access to the courts.” 22