types of electoral disputes (agreed to by 9 of those polled). Experts in the field were virtually evenly divided over the perceived clarity and appropriateness of justification for the authorities’ decisions, but disagreement mainly came from political parties. Finally, only two respondents agreed that existing remedies were appropriately applied in practice, whilst an absolute majority held the opposing view, leading to the lowest average score of 2.22 for this statement. According to the respondents, removal of political influence, greater independence, and capacity-building for the relevant institutions were the key options for enhancing the effectiveness of electoral dispute resolution. 3.2.4. Transparency The transparent administration of justice requires access to case information (ideally in real time as an electoral dispute is being investigated and adjudicated), open hearings, and decisions that are publicly available (subject to limited restrictions). Several factors merit consideration when assessing compliance of the Serbian arrangements with the globally recognized principle of transparency. First and foremost, even though legislation mandates electoral commissions to hold open hearings (which is largely adhered to at the national level), there is no requirement for the electoral administration to publicize its decisions. The REC does choose to publish all major rulings online, the last election has revealed the shortcomings of this process (primarily due to the lack of a legal publicity requirement), so the practice ended of releasing objections and decisions in response to them. It should also be noted that transparency is critically low at the local level, such that it is often very difficult or even impossible to find information about objections or decisions made on them.10 At the same time, the ongoing pandemic and restrictions on face-to-face meetings have led the REC to rule on objections (and results of voting) online, with no public consultation or public access to information, which is yet another argument against full compliance with the principle of transparency. By contrast, the Administrative Court ensures its rulings are transparent by regularly publishing anonymized judgments on a dedicated section of its web site given over to electoral cases, but does not permit real-time access to information or hold open hearings. Lastly, the ACA usually publishes its decisions and documents only with significant delay. The qualitative stakeholder survey assessed transparency of electoral justice in Serbia by examining the degree to which: (1) parties have access to all information in real time whilst relevant institutions (REC, Administrative Court) make decisions in cases; (2) the system permits timely publication of information about the numbers and types of cases opened and adjudicated; and (3) rulings on objections/appeals are publicly available in an accessible format. Since there is no central web site or standard, mandatory requirement for local authorities to publicise information about elections and electoral disputes, there is a great deal of variation amongst local governments in terms of transparency and extent of documents released. 10 17