Democracy, Free Elections and Independent Candidates: Critical Remarks On The Jurisprudence Of The European Court Of Human Rights

Abstract

In order to bypass the 10% electoral threshold, a significant number of independent candidates stood for election in 2007 parliamentary elections in Turkey. Having occurred, these independent candidates came upon deprivation of particular rights that political parties enjoy: The right to propaganda on state-run media and being included in the ballots set up in the customs. Taking into consideration of the fact that Turkey is a state party to the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocol No.1 which provides for the right to free elections in Article 3, these two legal issues require a close examination in terms of supranational human rights law. For this purpose, this article shall address the judgments and admissibility decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Oran Case (App. Nos. 28881/07 & 37920/07, Judgment of 15 April 2014) and Timurhan Case (App. No.28882/07, Admissibility Decision of 16 December 2014) concerning the relationship between individual candidates and free elections. To deal with the issue comprehensively, the correlation among democracy, human rights and good governance shall be analyzed within a framework which is composed of the concept, place and function of the right to political participation as recognized in international human rights law.