CASE OF SAMADBAYLI 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)
Erik Møse;Yonko Grozev
4. The applicants’ years of birth and places of residence are listed in the Appendix. 5Gahramanli and Others v. Azerbaijan (no. 36503/11, §§ 6-32, 8 October 2015). 6. The applicants were independent self-nominated or opposition candidates in the parliamentary elections of 7 November 2010 (see Appendix). All the applicants lost the elections in their respective constituencies. 7. After election day, the applicants lodged complaints with the Central Electoral Commission (“the CEC”) concerning a number of irregularities in their respective constituencies that had allegedly taken place during and/or before election day. Some of them also lodged identical complaints with the respective Constituency Electoral Commissions (“the ConECs”). They complained about various types of irregularities, including interference by public officials, illegal campaigning, obstruction and intimidation of election observers, ballot-box stuffing, repeated voting by the same individuals, irregularities in applying election ink, incorrect vote-counting procedures, inconsistencies in precinct election results records indicating a falsely inflated voter turnout, and so on. In support of their allegations, the applicants submitted various types of evidence documenting specific instances of the irregularities complained of, including statements made by election observers, video recordings and photographs. 8. The applicants who lodged a complaint with the respective ConECs did not receive any reply from them (except in applications nos. 36821/11, 37656/11, 37740/11, 41066/11 and 42360/11). All of the applicants’ complaints were examined by the CEC which, on various dates (see Appendix), issued decisions rejecting the applicants’ claims, providing reasoning similar to that in the CEC decision in Gahramanli and Others (cited above, §§ 21-26). 9. The applicants lodged further complaints with the Baku Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court which, on various dates (see Appendix), dismissed the applicants’ appeals, providing reasoning similar to that in their respective decisions in Gahramanli and Others (cited above, §§ 2732). 10. In the meantime, however ‒ and before the Supreme Court delivered its final decision concerning each complaint (except in application no. 42345/11) ‒ on 29 November 2010 the Constitutional Court confirmed the countrywide election results, including the election results in the applicants’ constituencies, as final (ibid., § 30). 11. At the material time Mr Intigam Aliyev was representing not only the applicants in the present cases, but a total of twentyseven other applicants in cases concerning the 2010 parliamentary elections and a number of applicants in other cases before the Court. 12. On 8 August 2014 criminal proceedings were instituted against Mr I. Aliyev, these being 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 proceedings pending before the Court which were in Mr Aliyev’s possession, comprising over 100 applications in total. The files relating to the present applications were also seized in their entirety. The facts relating to the seizure and the relevant proceedings are described in more detail in Annagi Hajibeyli v. Azerbaijan (no. 2204/11, §§ 21-28, 22 October 2015). 13. On 25 October 2014 the investigation authorities returned a number of the case files concerning the applications lodged before the Court, including the files relating to the present applications, to Mr Aliyev’s lawyer.