3.2.2. Efficiency The efficient administration of justice includes the requirement for an expeditious process, with reasonable deadlines for filing and disposition of different types of electoral disputes and complaints. The current legislative framework stipulates very restrictive and short time limits for both lodging objections and/or appeals and ruling on them in both the first and the second instance. Objections must be lodged with the REC within 24 hours from the time a violation is committed, whilst local electoral commissions receive objections within 24 hours from the end of the calendar day on which the violation was committed. Even though these bodies act highly efficiently, thereby complying with the requirement for quick proceedings, it seems that they do so at the expense of fairness, since such short time limits make it difficult to gain understanding of the alleged violations and breaches and nearly impossible to secure evidence substantiating allegations made in objections. Hence, time limits for filing objections could be defined subjectively, for instance as ‘24 hours from learning of a violation or breach’, and alignment of time limits at various levels should also be considered. Both the REC and local commissions have 48 hours to rule on an objection, and their ruling is then served on all parties. If an objection is upheld, the relevant decision or action is declared null and void, and if a commission does not deliver a ruling, the objection is deemed to be upheld. Time limits for appealing are short, amounting to 48 hours, and appeals are lodged via the REC, which must forward the objection and the required case files to the Administrative Court within 24 hours of receiving an appeal. The Administrative Court must rule on an appeal within 48 hours of receiving it and the relevant case files. This ruling cannot be contested by extraordinary legal remedies envisaged by the General Administrative Procedure Law. In practice, there is no simple system to file objections, especially since objections alleging violations at the local, provincial, and local level all follow different time limits and different procedures for filing. As such, the principle of efficiency is fully complied with in terms of the speed of proceedings, but there are shortcomings when it comes to appropriate time limits for filing objections. The assessment of the efficiency of electoral justice in Serbia in the qualitative survey of the community of experts looked at the extent to which: (1) time limits for filing objections with the REC were reasonable and well-regulated; (2) time limits for lodging appeals with the Administrative Court were reasonable and well-regulated; (3) time limits for ruling on objections/appeals were, in general, excessively short to allow their merits to be properly examined and for the institutions (REC, Administrative Court) to make equitable decisions; (4) a system that facilitated easy filing of complaints existed and was easy to use. 13