69 within the time limit established by the law, “it did not explain whether the time to which it referred is the time that a party must have existed in order to take part in the elections or the time established for the registration of candidates”; (b) YATAMA was not notified of the Supreme Electoral Council’s resolution “not to accept the candidates proposed by the PPC,” with which YATAMA had formed an alliance in the RAAS. When it entered into communication with officials of the Supreme Electoral Council, they advised that “the complete list for YATAMA would appear in the final publication of candidates,” but this did not happen; (c) Article 84 of the Electoral Act stipulates that when the Council rejects a candidate because he does not comply with the legal requirements, it shall notify this to the political party or alliance of parties within the following three days so that it may correct the defects or substitute the candidates. “Not only did the Supreme Electoral Council fail to initiate the procedure for remedying the candidacies, but it also failed to notify that it had rejected them”; (d) Article 98 of the Electoral Act establishes the possibility of the parties and alliances filing recourses “before the Supreme Electoral Council against decisions of the Electoral Councils which they consider have violated their rights.” Since the resolution of August 15, 2000, was issued by the “sole instance,” the representatives of YATAMA filed an appeal for review before it, which “was never decided”; (e) The State was obliged “to respect the procedure established in the law,” even though its resolutions were administrative or jurisdictional; (f) Since the legal consequence of YATAMA failing to participate in the 2000 municipal elections was “the cancellation of the legal status” of the political party, “the legal representatives of YATAMA presented an application for amparo based on Article 76 of the Electoral Act[,] which allows parties to apply [for] amparo if their legal status is cancelled.” However, the procedure to cancel the legal status of the parties that “did not take part in the 2000 electoral process” was never officially initiated, which implied that, if “the existence of a final resolution was necessary in order to apply for amparo, the State had already curtailed this right by not initiating the cancellation process for YATAMA, as established in the Electoral Act.” The Court of Appeal, which expedited the initial processing of the application for amparo decided “to suspend de oficio the resolution with regard to not allowing the YATAMA Regional Party to register its candidates.” The Supreme Electoral Council did not comply with this decision; (g) The Supreme Court of Justice rejected the application for amparo filed by YATAMA without mentioning the “reasons that [...] its jurisdiction” or the “main purpose of the application”; (h) The Supreme Electoral Council exercises administrative rather than jurisdictional functions. The laws of Nicaragua do not require the members of this body to be experts in legal or electoral matters. Also, “in the case of Nicaragua, there is no judicial recourse against decisions on electoral matters, while, in other countries whose electoral body has similar characteristics, there is a possibility of having recourse to the Judiciary; and