Right to free elections in the European Convention of Human Rights

The right to vote is not part of the main text of the European Convention of Human Rights enacted in 1950. This right, considered difficult to be set out in a single treaty provision due to the diversity of the relevant constitutional traditions in the member States, has been eventually located in Article 3 of the First Additional Protocol to the Convention (1951). Penned differently than the other Convention provisions and named the right to free elections, Article 3 of Protocol no. 1 seems to focus on the institutional dimension: it prescribes that free election be held at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, ensuring the free expression of the opinion in the choice of the legislature. Moreover, both Strasbourg control bodies: the European Commission on Human Rights (ceased to exist on 1 November 1998) and the European Court on Human Rights have been assuming that member States are given broad discretion, called (significant) margin of appreciation, in the field of elections. Despite those assumptions, a personal aspect of the right of elections has been identified as inherent in Article 3. It means that under the provision on free elections individuals (and other corporate entities, first of all political parties) have a right to vote and to stand in elections. The Court turned out to be ready to find a number of violations of the right to free elections (until 2014 there were 67 such judgments). In its recent case law the Court happened to have been highly critical of domestic provisions prohibiting, in general terms, whole groups (as prisoners or incapacitated people) from voting. But in other election-related matters the Court still remains awarding significant discretionary powers to the member States.