ANATOLIY MARINOV v. BULGARIA JUDGMENT the disenfranchisement of the applicant pursued a legitimate aim in a proportionate manner, having regard to the principles identified above. (i) Legitimate aim 52. The Court points out that Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 does not, like other provisions of the Convention, specify or limit the aims that a restriction must pursue and that a wide range of purposes may therefore be compatible with that provision. The Government submitted that the measure complained of had pursued the legitimate aim of ensuring that only persons capable of making informed and meaningful decisions could participate in the choice of legislature in the country (paragraph 39 above). The applicant did not comment on that point. The Court is satisfied that the impugned measure pursued a legitimate aim (see Alajos Kiss, cited above, § 38). (ii) Proportionality 53. The Court notes that the restriction in question does not distinguish between those under total guardianship and those under partial guardianship; Article 42 § 1 of the Constitution concerns citizens “placed under guardianship” in general (see paragraph 13 above). The restriction is removed only once guardianship is lifted (see the Government’s submission in paragraph 40 above). It also observes that the parties’ submissions contain statistics reflecting the proportion of Bulgaria’s voting-age population that has been disenfranchised on account of being under guardianship as a whole (that is to say under either partial guardianship or total guardianship) indicating that the proportion of persons who have been only partially deprived of legal capacity in Bulgaria amounts to 0.014% of the voting-age population (see paragraphs 36 and 41 above). However, the Court does not consider it necessary to take a position on the relevance of this data in view of the fact that, in any event, the impugned restriction appears to be disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued by the State in this case, in the light of the following observations. 54. The Government argued, referring to the margin of appreciation that they enjoyed, that it must be permissible for the legislature to establish rules ensuring that the electoral process was conducted in such a manner as to best reflect the voters’ will (see paragraph 40 above). 55. The Court has already accepted that this is an area in which, generally, a wide margin of appreciation should be granted to the national legislature in determining whether restrictions on the right to vote can be justified in modern times and, if so, how a fair balance is to be struck. In particular, it should be for the legislature to decide as to what procedure should be tailored to assess the fitness to vote of mentally disabled persons (see Alajos Kiss, cited above, § 41). The Court observes that there is no evidence that the Bulgarian legislature has ever sought to weigh the competing interests or to 13