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proposed by a political party, consider that their right to be elected has been violated when
their registration for public office is unduly denied. They stated that the Electoral Tribunal
does not have the competence to decide contestations of electoral laws in the case of a
citizen who does not belong to a political party such as Mr. Castañeda Gutman. Lastly, they
indicated that the cases to which the State referred, including the Hank Rhon case, “were
filed individually by candidates proposed by a party or by a coalition of parties,” and that “if
they had not been proposed by a party, the action would have been declared inadmissible
and the claim would have been rejected outright.”
105. The State argued that the Electoral Tribunal has stated that the admissibility of the
judicial action for protection only required the presence of the elements established in the
first paragraph of Article 79 of the Law on Contesting Electoral Matters and that “for the
admissibility [of the action], the provisions of Article 80 [of this Law] are not important.” It
attached the Electoral Tribunal’s case law indicating that the “requirements for the
admissibility of the action for the protection of the political and electoral rights of the citizen
are established in Article 79 (and not 80) of the [Law on Contesting Electoral Matters].”
Based on this case law, the State indicated that Article 79 of the Law on Contesting Electoral
Matters “opens up the judicial action for protection to any citizen who considers that his
rights have been infringed, including those who state that they have not been postulated by
a party,” and that Article 80 of the said Law establishes “some specific conditions, for
example, the case of candidates proposed by political parties.” To reinforce the argument
about the admissibility of the action for the protection of political and electoral rights,
without the need to file this through a political party, the State referred during the public
hearing, among other cases, to that of Hank Rhon, in which “[…] the said citizen, when filing
the remedy, did so on his own behalf; in other words, he was not supported by any political
party when he resorted to the Tribunal to defend his right to participate, and it was only
when the Tribunal ruled in his favor that a political party adopted him and, consequently, he
was able to take part in the corresponding elections.
*
*
*
106. To comply with its Convention-based obligation to establish within their domestic
laws an effective recourse in the terms of the Convention, the States must provide
accessible recourses to all persons to protect their rights. If a specific judicial action is the
recourse destined by the law to obtain the restitution of the right that is considered violated,
any person who holds title to that right must be genuinely able to file it.
107. In this case, the alleged victim claimed a violation of his political right to be elected,
owing to an electoral law that imposed the requirement that candidates had to be
postulated by a political party. The Court must determine whether the judicial action for
protection was an accessible recourse for the alleged victim. As the Court has observed, the
amparo was an inadmissible recourse owing to the matter involved (supra para. 91) and the
unconstitutionality proceedings were not available for an individual such as Mr. Castañeda
Gutman, because it is a special recourse limited, among other aspects, by its active legal
capacity (infra para. 128).
108. The law that regulates the judicial action for protection is the Law on Contesting
Electoral Matters. Article 79(1) of this Law establishes that:
The judicial action for the protection of political and electoral rights is only admissible when the
citizen, on his own behalf and on an individual basis, claims alleged violations of his right to elect
and be elected in general elections, to associate individually and freely to take part peacefully in
political matters and to join political parties freely and individually.