Elections on Trial: The Effective Management of Election Disputes and Violations the balance between fairness and efficiency is critical to ensure cases do not exceed legal deadlines (impacting an effective remedy), or are quickly dismissed without investigation (impacting the right to a fair hearing) Effectiveness The effective administration of justice includes the right to a written, reasoned decision that is not capricious, unreasonable or arbitrary, the right to appeal/judicial review, and the right to an effective remedy. The effective administration of justice ensures that the fundamental right to redress is provided in practice. As IFES has written about previously,103 the right to redress requires adequate processes to pursue a claim. As such, EDR mechanisms must provide for judicial review of administrative decisions, the ability to appeal decisions, and the prospect of an effective remedy.104 The fundamental right of redress also requires that a petitioner be informed of the reasons why the claim was dismissed or denied.105 Hence, an EMB, tribunal or court should clearly set out the legal basis used and factual determination made when ruling on a particular case, to help parties understand the reasoning behind the decision, to facilitate enforcement, and to help in establishing the legitimacy of the final electoral results.106 In Castañeda Gutman v. México, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that “it is a minimum guarantee for anyone who files a remedy that the grounds for the ruling deciding it are stated; otherwise the ruling will violate the guarantee of due process.”107 In that case, the former Mexican minister of foreign affairs tried to participate in the 2006 presidential elections without being affiliated with a political party. The Court found that, in failing to provide justification for the candidate disqualification, the state violated the American Convention on Human Rights as it “neither provided an accessible or effective judicial procedure for an individual to contest the electoral authority’s judgment nor protect his political right to be elected.”108 Reasoned decisions are important to ensure that cases are not dismissed in an arbitrary manner, that electoral grievances are litigated through the courts and not the media, and that judgments are ultimately accepted. The former chief justice of Australia has observed that “the general acceptability of 103 Chad Vickery (ed.), Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections (GUARDE), 2011 104 UDHR, supra note 10, art.8; ICCPR, supra note 11, art. 2, § 3(a),(c); African Charter, supra note 14, art. 7, § 1; European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, art. 13, Nov. 4, 1950, C.E.T.S. No. 5 (entered into force Sept. 3, 1953) [hereinafter European Convention], available at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm. 105 Chad Vickery (ed.), Guidelines for Understanding, supra note 95, ch. 1 106 Chad Vickery (ed.), Guidelines for Understanding, supra note 95, ch. 1 107 Castañeda Gutman v. México, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Judgment of August 6, 2008, ¶ 93 108 Castañeda Gutman v. México, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Judgment of August 6, 2008, ¶ 93 31