Categories
Journalistic Survey
Articles
Reportage
Analitic
Photo Reportage
Exclusive
Interview
Foreign Media about Georgia
Editorial
Position
Reader's opinion
Blog
Themes
Children's Rights
Women's Rights
Justice
Refugees/IDPs
Minorities
Media
Army
Health
Corruption
Elections
Education
Penitentiary
Religion
Others

Big Part of Administrative Complaints on Election Violations Was Not Satisfied

December 8, 2016
 
Natia Gogolashvili

National Democratic Institute (NDI) reported that the questions about partiality and consistency of the review mechanism of the complaints about election violations during 2016 Parliamentary Elections was one of the main problems. NGOs speak about narrow clarifications of the election law and tendency of rejecting the complaints. 

“The Election administrators annulled results in 10 polling stations and called for reruns in four. Yet many requests for recounts or annulments due to imbalances in protocols and high numbers of invalid ballots were rejected, with the election administration noting that the incidents cited would not have a significant impact on the results. Given the small margins by which some mandates were determined in these elections, exceptional levels of scrutiny, transparency, and consistency were warranted to promote public confidence,” the NDI report reads.

NDI recommends that legal bodies (administrative and judicial) receiving electoral complaints should act in a timely, independent, and impartial manner and provide effective redress where warranted.

Observers of Human Rights Center filed 14 complaints on the polling day. The complaints were mostly about the following violations: engagement of part of commission members in the political disputes with voters; often regulators of the flow of voters allowed citizens to enter the precinct, who had already voted; an observer was not allowed to enter a polling station; a demonstrative protocol was not pinned on the wall; commission member did not write an explanatory note when the legislation required it; a control sheet was not in the mobile ballot box; the inking verification process was not done properly, and others.

Lawyer at Human Rights Center Ana Gurieli said majority of complaints were satisfied immediately after they were registered; as for the unregistered complaints, they were submitted to the District Election Commissions.

On October 8, Ana Gurieli observed that voters, who were already inked, repeatedly voted in one of the precincts in Marneuli municipality. This violation was not eradicated on the place and Human Rights Center submitted the complaint to upper legal body – Marneuli DEC. The latter had to consider the complaint within the concrete timeframe. Before that, the DEC was entitled to inform the Center about the scheduled discussion of the complaint at least three hours before the session. Representative of Human Rights Center should have chance to attend the discussion of her complaint – it is regulated by the Election Code.

Ana Gurieli said the Marneuli DEC contacted her only after the meeting and notified that her complaint was not satisfied. “Nobody conducted me during the day. In the evening, after 7 pm, when the complaint discussion procedure had finished, one of the DEC members called me and informed that they had discussed the complaint of the Center and did not satisfy it. Human Rights Center appealed the DEC decision at the court. At the court, we learned that the Marneuli DEC had issued protocol on technical notification of the party, which stated that DEC had contacted the complaint author before the discussion and had notified her about the scheduled time. The protocol reads that they had called me at 18:00 pm. However, the protocol was drafted at 14:20 pm on the same day. Consequently, it demonstrates that the protocol was formal document. We applied the communication operator Magitcom to confirm that on October 9, none of the DEC members had called me before 18:00 pm.”

Another violation was observed in the polling station in Keshalo village, Marneuli municipality, where Human Rights Center’s observer Giorgi Tkebuchava was physically abused. The observer gave remarks to the chairman and deputy chair of the precinct election commission about concrete violation that caused their aggression. Human Rights Center did not have chance to lodge a complaint at the precinct but several days later, they petitioned to the CEC. The CEC forwarded the complaint to the Marneuli DEC and requested to respond it. The Marneuli DEC concluded that they could not detect signs of physical abuse of the observer Giorgi Tkebuchava and consequently there was no ground to impose disciplinary sanctions on concrete persons. Afterwards, the Center appealed the DEC decision at the CEC. The latter will discuss the complaint on December 9. It is important that criminal case was also launched against harassers but the prosecutor’s office dropped the investigation due to absence of signs of crime in it.

During the first round of the parliamentary elections, observers of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association lodged complaints about 443 election violation facts. During the second round they filed 79 complaints.

According to the GYLA’s report, tendency of narrow interpretation of the election law and unsatisfied complaints was observed during the discussion of election complaints. “Both election commission and courts interpreted the provisions of the election law in a narrow manner; in fact it became ground of rejecting the submitted complaints. There was an impression that similar approach aimed at getting rid of the complaints instead estimation of truth/justice in the facts. Regardless gravity of the violations, only disciplinary sanctions were imposed on the election commission members and did not satisfy lawful requirements of the complaints.”

According to the GYLA’s evaluation, particular attention shall be paid to the selection criteria and procedures of the precinct and district election commissions and their capacity building. It is important to conduct systemic legislative and institutional amendments, and reforms in the rule of selection of staff members in the election administration.

It is noteworthy that GYLA’s report mentions miscarriages in the administrative proceedings. “The district election commissions did not conduct the administrative procedures in compliance with the law. For example, they did not invite the authors of the complaints to participate in the discussion process (Isani DEC, Tbilisi), did not deliver session protocols (Krtsanisi DEC, Tbilisi), did not verify the issued resolutions.”

International Society for Free Elections and Democracy (ISFED) filed 244 complaints to the DECs about the violations observed on October 8 and afterwards. 93 complaints were fully satisfied, 40 complaints were partly satisfied, 90 were dissatisfied and 20 complaints were rejected.

“In the majority of their complaints ISFED requested responsibility of the PEC members for improperly implemented duties. In four cases ISFED requested to annul the election results; in 41 complaints the organization requested to annul the final protocols and review the ballot results; 91 complaints were about incorrectly filled in final protocols. According to the ISFED’s evaluation, during the discussion of the complaints, some DECs did not properly study the evidence, question witnesses and PEC members. In separate cases, the ISFED observers did not have possibility to participate in the complaints discussion process.

Photo: The protocol issued by the Marneuli DEC


News