The Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA) has announced that the European Court of Human Rights has registered its complaint concerning the large-scale violation of ballot secrecy in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

According to GYLA, the complaint challenges the violation of Article 3 of the First Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to free elections.

“The European Court of Human Rights has registered GYLA’s application, which concerns the mass violation of the secrecy of the ballot during the 2024 Parliamentary Elections. GYLA argues that Article 3 of Protocol 1 was violated of the European Convention on Human Rights (Right to free elections).

According to Article 3 of Protocol 1, the High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature. The application states that the election administration’s improper fulfillment of its obligations during the elections massively violated the fundamental principle of the secrecy of the ballot, and the right to review election disputes through effective mechanisms was violated during the judicial review of the election disputes. GYLA also argues in its application that the blanket provision in the Georgian legislation, which limits citizens’ ability to file a lawsuit concerning an election dispute, does not comply with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights.

It is noteworthy that several weeks before the 2024 parliamentary elections, during educational-informational meetings held by the CEC, GYLA discovered risks of the breach of the secrecy in relation to the 2024 parliamentary elections and addressed these concerns to the CEC in advance to take appropriate measures to eliminate this problem. In this regard, GYLA was informed that the ballot paper used at the CEC training and information meetings was a test version, and the quality of the ballot paper used on the day of the elections would be different, which would ensure secrecy. Nevertheless, during the 2024 parliamentary elections, the CEC failed to ensure that the back of the ballot paper would not show traces of a colored circle.

Using the dispute mechanisms provided within the country, GYLA requested the annulment of the results of all the precincts (2263) in 73 districts where elections were held using technology. GYLA argued that the principle of the secrecy of the ballot was massively violated on the day of the elections, which violates the right to vote guaranteed by the Constitution of Georgia.

At the domestic level, GYLA’s lawsuit was only upheld by the Tetritskaro District Court. The court checked randomly the ballot papers from several polling stations in Tsalka and Tetritskaro districts, where it was confirmed that marker traces were visible on the back of the ballot papers. Judge Vladimer Khuchua also conducted a ballot verification experiment during the hearing of the case. The experiment also confirmed the clear fact of a breach of secrecy when placing the ballot in the vote counting machine. Later, the decision of the Tetritskaro court was revoked by the Tbilisi Court of Appeals.

The application submitted by GYLA to the European Court of Human Rights is precedential in its content and provides the court with the opportunity to assess, in the context of the Convention, the systemic violation of the secrecy revealed during the 26 October 2024 elections, as well as, the fairness of the system for reviewing election-related complaints,” the GYLA stated.