6 MAGYAR KÉTFARKÚ KUTYA PÁRT v. HUNGARY JUDGMENT invalid ballot could have influenced voters and had thus constituted unlawful campaigning. 26. By a decision of 10 October 2016 the Kúria upheld the NEC’s decision of 30 September 2016 as to its finding regarding the infringement of the principle of the exercise of rights in accordance with their purpose, but dismissed its conclusions regarding the fairness of the referendum. The decision contained the following passages: “... The request for review The petitioner has lodged a petition for review of the decision of the National Election Commission, requesting that the decision be set aside and the complaint be overturned. In its view, the decision violates Articles 2 (1) and IX (1) of the Fundamental Law and section 2(1)(e) of the Electoral Procedure Act. The petitioner pointed out that it was for the complainant to prove that the application was illegal, and that since he had failed to do so, the complaint should have been rejected without examination on the merits. The NEC did not examine the application, basing its findings on press releases. The petitioner attached the application on an external device and argued that neither it nor the developer of the application could have access to the personal data of the users; the data transferred could not be linked to a user and therefore did not constitute personal data. The Guidelines [of the National Election Commission] did not have binding force and could not constitute a legal basis for the decision. According to the petitioner’s reasoning, its conduct in providing publicity for the application and calling on voters to use the application fell on the one hand within the sphere of protection of freedom of expression, and on the other hand called on voters to exercise their right to freedom of expression, protected by Article IX (1) of the Fundamental Law. The right to freedom of expression was not an unlimited fundamental right. However, regard being had to a number of Constitutional Court judgments, it could only be restricted in so far as necessary and proportionate in relation to another fundamental right or constitutional principle, and any restriction should be capable of achieving the stated aim. The secrecy of the vote had not been infringed by the application since the content of the vote could not be linked to the voter. The secrecy of the vote entailed the right for voters to ensure that no one could gain knowledge of how they had voted, but it did not create an obligation for voters not to share details of their vote with others. Irrespective of the above, the application, which provided a forum for voters to share the content of their vote with others, was incapable of infringing the secrecy of the vote. Therefore, in the petitioner’s view, the application did not infringe Article 2 (1) of the Fundamental Law or section 2(1)(a) and (e) of the Electoral Procedure Act. ... According to the petitioner, the NEC did not give reasons in its decision for finding that the application was particularly likely to shake public confidence in the IT and tallying system for voting and in the work of the electoral bodies. ... The decision of the Kúria and its reasoning The NEC was right to find that the application enabled users to upload data in connection with the referendum of 2 October 2016; the information published on the petitioner’s website and Facebook page called on voters to post photographs and other