Author(s): Nataliia Chudyk, Vladyslav Teremetskyi, Anatolii Podoliaka, Liliya Gryshko, Hanna Zubenko, Kateryna Danicheva, Ilona Harashchuk
The article is focused on the analysis of international and legal standards of judicial control over the realization of electoral rights. Elections are one of the forms of direct democracy, which are a complex political and legal process for the formation of state and authoritative institutions through the implementation of individual’s political rights. The attribution of the latter to the so-called “first generation” in the evolution of individual rights and freedoms, their general constitutional consolidation testifies to the basic importance in a state-organized society. However, these rights have a clear specific feature of the legal nature, which is reflected both in the regulatory consolidation and in the construction of a system of guarantees of their observance and implementation by a person. The authors of the article have revealed the specifics of international and legal standards of judicial control over the realization of electoral rights. The main attention is focused on the complexity of the electoral process, as well as the involvement of “political players” and politically sensitive issues that “inevitably lead to disputes”, as noted by the European Commission for democracy through law, better known as Venice Commission in its Report on the Settlement of Electoral Disputes. Such disputes are a “natural component of a full-fledged political life” in a country that, in turn, is a “natural component of a full-fledged pluralistic system”. Therefore, resolving these disputes is a key element of effective and functional “electoral governance” to ensure the confidence in electoral processes. The authors have concluded that the international and legal practice of judicial control over the realization of electoral rights is diverse and, to some extent, contradictory. The international and legal mechanism for the realization of electoral rights has undergone a certain evolution, due to the ambiguity and specify of each situation, as well as the need to protect one of the key values of modern democracy – the right to elect and to be elected. It has been proved that the practice of international courts, first of all the European Court of Human Rights, also plays an important role. The authors have studied the ways of implementing international standards into the national system of law – legislative, law-enforcement, as well as through their direct application by all subjects of the relevant legal relations.