HAJILI v. AZERBAIJAN JUDGMENT 9 examination is necessary under Article 13. Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 reads as follows: “The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.” A. Admissibility 33. The Government argued that the applicant had lost his “victim” status because the authorities had acknowledged the breaches of electoral law that had infringed the electoral rights of voters and candidates (including the applicant) and afforded redress for those breaches, by means of invalidating the election results and ordering repeat elections in the constituency. 34. The applicant contested this objection. 35. The Court considers that the Government’s objection is misplaced as it appears to be based on an assumption that the applicant’s Convention rights had been breached by the fact of the alleged irregularities that included “falsification of electoral documents” at the PEC and ConEC level. However, the Court notes that in the present case, the applicant complained not about the alleged irregularities at the lower levels or the alleged perpetrators of those irregularities, but about the allegedly arbitrary annulment by the CEC of the election results in his constituency. Accordingly, the Court notes that in the present case the annulment of the election results could not possibly deprive the applicant of his victim status in respect of the present complaint, given that this annulment in itself is the matter complained of. Moreover, the mere fact that the repeat elections were held does not constitute a redress for any breaches of electoral rights that had taken place during the original elections. For these reasons, the Court rejects the Government’s objection. 36. The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention and is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible. B. Merits 1. The parties’ submissions 37. The Government submitted that the CEC’s decision to invalidate the election results in the applicant’s electoral constituency had followed a complaint by the applicant himself and had been based on sound factual findings.