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ECHR to Hold Hearing on Merits on Labor Party v Georgia

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will hold a hearing on merits on a case taken by the opposition Labor Party against Georgia on September 4.


The Labor Party, led by Shalva Natelashvili, maintains that it was deprived of seats in Parliament because of electoral irregularities in the March 28, 2004 elections.


The political standoff between the central authorities and then Adjarian leader, Aslan Abashidze, prevented the holding of the elections on March 28 in two electoral districts in the autonomous republic ? Kobuleti and Khulo. The vote was rescheduled for April 18, but polling stations failed to open, depriving around 60,000 voters of their right to cast a ballot.


On the same day, April 18, the Georgian Central Election Commission, chaired by Zurab Tchiaberashvili (now Georgia?s envoy to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg), finalized nation-wide election results, disregarding the two districts in Adjara. The Labor Party received 6.01%, while 7% was needed to clear the electoral threshold.


The Labor Party’s case posits that the March 28, 2004 parliamentary elections were in breach of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which upholds the right to free elections.


?In particular, it challenges the system of preliminary voter registration,? ECHR said in a press release on August 23. ?It also complains that a majority of CEC members were representatives of the ruling political forces and that the CEC took decisions by a majority vote enabling it to ignore the Georgian Labor Party’s numerous protests about electoral irregularities. The applicant party further complains that it was deprived of its chance to win parliamentary seats because the general election results were finalised without a vote having been held in two electoral districts.?

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)

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