CASE OF SHUKUROV 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)
André Potocki;Angelika Nußberger;Khanlar Hajiyev;Mārtiņš Mits;Síofra O’Leary;Yonko Grozev
5. The applicant was born in 1959 and lives in Baku. 6. Gahramanli and Others v. Azerbaijan (no. 36503/11, §§ 6-32, 8 October 2015). 7. The applicant was nominated by the Classic wing of the Popular Front party to stand as a candidate in the parliamentary elections of 7 November 2010 in the single-mandate Zangilan-Gubadly Electoral Constituency No. 125. The applicant lost the election in his constituency. 8. After election day, the applicant lodged a complaint with the Central Electoral Commission (the “CEC”) concerning a number of irregularities in his constituency that had allegedly taken place during election day. He complained of various types of irregularity, including interference by public officials, illegal campaigning, obstruction and intimidation of election observers, ballot-box stuffing, repeated voting by the same individuals, incorrect vote-counting procedures, and a falsely inflated voter turnout. In support of his allegations, the applicant submitted various types of evidence documenting specific instances of the irregularities complained of, including statements made by election observers, and video and audio recordings. 9. On 20 November 2010 the CEC issued a decision rejecting the applicant’s claims. Its reasoning was similar to that in the CEC decision in Gahramanli and Others (cited above, §§ 21-26). 10. The applicant lodged further complaints with the Baku Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court which, on 24 November and 1 December 2010 respectively, dismissed the applicant’s appeals. Their reasoning was similar to that in their respective decisions in the Gahramanli and Others case (cited above, §§ 27-32). 11. In the meantime, before the Supreme Court delivered its final decision in the applicant’s case, on 29 November 2010 the Constitutional Court had confirmed the country-wide election results, including the election results in the applicant’s constituency, as final (ibid., § 30). 12. At the material time Mr Intigam Aliyev was representing not only the applicant in the present case, but also a total of twentyseven other applicants in cases concerning the 2010 parliamentary elections and a number of applicants in other cases before the Court. 13. 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 proceedings pending before the Court, which were in Mr Aliyev’s possession and which concerned over 100 applications in total. The file relating to the present application was also seized in its 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). 14. 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 the present application, to Mr Aliyev’s lawyer.