CASE OF MAMMADLI AND OTHERS v. AZERBAIJAN
Violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 - Right to free elections-{general} (Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 - Stand for election);Violation of Article 34 - Individual applications (Article 34 - Hinder the exercise of the right of petition)
Carlo Ranzoni;Khanlar Hajiyev
4. The applicants’ dates of birth and places of residence are given in the Appendix. 5. Tahirov v. Azerbaijan (no. 31953/11, §§ 6-22, 11 June 2015) and Annagi Hajibeyli v. Azerbaijan (no. 2204/11, §§ 6-20, 22 October 2015). 6. The applicants stood as candidates in the parliamentary elections of 7 November 2010 and applied for registration as candidates in various single–mandate electoral constituencies (see Appendix). 7. The respective Constituency Electoral Commissions (“ConECs”) on various dates (see Appendix) refused the applicants’ requests for registration as a candidate after the ConEC working groups had found that some of the supporting voter signatures submitted by the applicants were invalid and that the remaining valid signatures had numbered fewer than 450, a minimum required by law. Signatures were found to be invalid on several grounds in each case. 8. None of the applicants, except the applicant in application no. 30750/11, were invited to the ConEC meetings where decisions to refuse their requests for registration were taken. In each case, despite the requirements of the law, all the relevant working group documents and the ConEC decision itself were made available to the applicants belatedly or never made available to them. 9. Each applicant lodged a complaint with the Central Electoral Commission (“the CEC”) against the ConEC decisions. The points raised in their complaints were similar to those made by the applicants in Tahirov (cited above, §§ 13-14) and Annagi Hajibeyli (cited above, §§ 11-12). 10. On various dates, the CEC also rejected the applicants’ complaints (see Appendix), after another examination of the signature sheets by members of its own working group, which had found in each case that large numbers of signatures were invalid and that the remaining valid signatures were below the minimum required by law. 11. None of the applicants were invited to attend the relevant CEC or working group meetings. Moreover, in each case, all the relevant CEC documents were only made available to the applicants after the CEC decision had been taken. 12. On various dates, each of the applicants lodged an appeal with the Baku Court of Appeal against the decisions of the electoral commissions. They reiterated the complaints they had made before the CEC concerning the ConEC decisions and procedures. They also raised a number of other points similar to those raised by the applicants in Tahirov (cited above, § 19) and Annagi Hajibeyli (cited above, § 17). 13. On various dates (see Appendix), the Baku Court of Appeal dismissed appeals by the applicants, finding that their arguments were irrelevant or unsubstantiated and that there were no grounds for quashing the decisions of the CEC. 14. The applicants lodged cassation appeals with the Supreme Court, reiterating their previous complaints and arguing that the Baku Court of Appeal had not carried out a fair examination of the cases and had delivered unreasoned judgments. 15. On various dates (see Appendix), the Supreme Court dismissed the applicants’ appeals as unsubstantiated, without examining their arguments in detail, and found no grounds to doubt the findings of the electoral commissions or of the Baku Court of Appeal. 16. In addition to the applicants in the present cases, at the material time Mr Intigam Aliyev, the applicants’ representative in applications nos. 2326/11, 8055/11 and 30750/11, was representing a total of twentyseven applicants in cases concerning the 2010 parliamentary elections and a number of applicants in other cases before the Court. 17. On 8 August 2014 criminal proceedings were instituted against Mr I. Aliyev, which are the subject of a separate application brought by him before the Court (application no. 68762/14). On 8 and 9 August 2014 the investigation authorities seized a large number of documents from Mr I. Aliyev’s office including all the case files relating to the pending proceedings before the Court, which were in Mr Aliyev’s possession and which concerned over 100 applications in total. The files relating to applications nos. 2326/11, 8055/11 and 30750/11 were also seized in their entirety. The facts relating to the seizure and the relevant proceedings are described in more detail in Annagi Hajibeyli (cited above, §§ 21-28). 18. On 25 October 2014 the investigation authorities returned a number of the case files concerning the applications lodged before the Court, including the file relating to applications nos. 2326/11, 8055/11 and30750/11, to Mr Aliyev’s lawyer.