4 SAMADBAYLI AND OTHERS v. AZERBAIJAN JUDGMENT II. THE GOVERNMENT’S REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS Nos. 36821/11, 37656/11, 37661/11, 37740/11, 37866/11, 38636/11 AND 38885/11 TO BE STRUCK OUT UNDER ARTICLE 37 OF THE CONVENTION 16. The Government submitted unilateral declarations with a view to resolving the issues raised by the above-mentioned applications. They further requested that the Court strike these applications out of the list of cases, in accordance with Article 37 of the Convention. 17. The applicants disagreed with the terms of the unilateral declarations and asked the Court to continue its examination of the applications. 18. Having studied the terms of the Government’s unilateral declarations, the Court considers – for the reasons stated in Tahirov v. Azerbaijan (no. 31953/11, §§ 32-42, 11 June 2015) and Annagi Hajibeyli v. Azerbaijan (no. 2204/11, §§ 30-40, 22 October 2015), which are equally applicable to the present cases and from which the Court sees no reason to deviate – that the proposed declarations do not provide a sufficient basis for concluding that respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols does not require it to continue its examination of the present applications. 19. The Court therefore refuses the Government’s request for it to strike the applications out of its list of cases under Article 37 of the Convention, and will accordingly pursue its examination of the admissibility and merits of the cases. III. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 3 OF PROTOCOL No. 1 TO THE CONVENTION 20. Relying on Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and Article 13 of the Convention, the applicants complained that in the electoral constituencies where they had run for parliamentary election there had been a number of serious irregularities and breaches of electoral law which had made it impossible to determine the true opinion of the voters and had thus infringed their right to stand as candidates in free elections. The domestic authorities, including the electoral commissions and courts, had failed to properly examine their complaints and to investigate their allegations concerning the aforementioned irregularities and breaches of electoral law. Several of the applicants complained, in particular, that the examination of their appeal by the Supreme Court had been deprived of all effectiveness because the election results had already been confirmed by the Constitutional Court. 21. Having examined the special features of the present case, the Court considers that this complaint falls to be examined only under Article 3 of

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