Internal Tensions in Election Dispute Resolution

Legal regulation of elections is a part of so-called legal self-regulation of politics, because political parties represented in parliament approve and usually even prepare laws regulating elections,
in which they themselves compete.

Rule of law requires judicial control of elections, in which the most important holders of public power are chosen.

There are some important internal tensions inherent to election dispute resolution:

The first one is the tension between the time limits for filing the complaints and deciding appeals and complexity of the facts of some electoral cases concerning the review of election results, election campaigns and their funding.

Elected candidate is very often the main victim of annuling the elections or their results, because he/she is usually not guilty of violation of law, even in cases when it has been breached in their favor.

In electoral matters the breach of the law has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, but the influence of this breach of law on the election results (who is elected) only needs to be proven on the level of balance of probability.

The right to file the electoral complaints against election results has to be limited to candidates and political parties with some percentage of votes received (e.g. 5 %), because „actio popularis“ allowing all voters and candidates to contest the election results could result in unmanageable amount of complaints.