decide the country’s destiny, and they cannot be prevented from electing the persons they deem most suitable to the office. 20. It alleged that the right to reelection as provided for in Nicaragua is consistent with the American Convention and the inter-American system and that it is also recognized in the jurisprudence and constitutional norms of countries such as Costa Rica and Honduras. It also added that the information provided by the alleged victim about the state’s supposed abolition of opposition political parties for the 2016 elections is untrue. It asserted that, in the general elections of 2011, there were 18 political parties participating and that the political party for which the alleged victim was running as a candidate in the 2011 elections has been exercising its legal status fully and has participated in all elections convened since 1990. 21. Regarding the right to judicial protection and the duty to adopt provisions under domestic law, the state presented diverging positions at different times. First, it stated that the alleged victim had access to available remedies for appealing the ruling of the CSE which registered President Ortega’s candidacy. It also stated that, when the Supreme Court of Justice’s judgments were being issued, the appeal for clarification was available. 22. Second, it stated that electoral law stipulates that, in electoral matters, appeals are not admissible because an electoral process needs to guarantee certainty and security. It also stated that, under domestic law, constitutional and legal provisions have been adopted to guarantee the right of citizens to judicial protection. III. DETERMINATIONS OF FACT A. General context of the concentration of power and undermining of the rule of law in Nicaragua 23. The IACHR has documented, through its monitoring mechanisms, a general context of concentration of power in the hands of the executive branch and the undermining of democratic institutions in Nicaragua, abetted by the apportionment of the branches of government to members of the administration’s political party, as well as the lack of independence and impartiality of certain monitoring bodies. In that respect, on repeated occasions the IACHR has received complaints filed by civil society on how appointments to various government institutions―the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), the Office of the Comptroller General, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), and the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic―have been given to members of the ruling political party and how this has undermined the people’s exercise of their political rights, right to freedom of association and assembly, right to freedom of expression, and right to the circulation of ideas, (…). 2 According to the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts appointed by the IACHR, this process of undermining democratic institutions can be identified as starting at the end of the nineties and has intensified since 2007 when José Daniel Ortega Saavedra came into office as President of the Republic. 3 24. As for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, it has underscored that, since the presidential elections of 2006, the institutional framework has been undermined by the concentration of the branches of government in the hands of the ruling party. This has contributed to reduced civic space, the lack of independence of the judiciary and the national human rights institution (Office of the Human Rights Defender), recurrent allegations of corruption, electoral fraud, and media censorship, and high levels of impunity (…). 4 25. Specifically, regarding the absence of independence the judicial branch, the IACHR has contended that: 2 IACHR, Annual Report 2018, chapter IV. B Nicaragua. General Human Rights Situation since April 2018. Concentration of power and undermining the rule of law, para. 27. 3 Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, for Nicaragua (GIEI Nicaragua), Final Report 2018, p. 43. 4 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Human rights violations and abuses in the context of protests in Nicaragua, 18 April-18 August 2018, para. 8.