68 IX VIOLATION OF ARTICLES 8(1) AND 25 OF THE CONVENTION IN RELATION TO ARTICLES 1(1) AND 2 THEREOF (RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL AND TO JUDICIAL PROTECTION) 142. Arguments of the Commission (a) The decisions of the Supreme Electoral Council not to accept YATAMA’s request to register as candidates of this party, those candidates presented by the alliance between YATAMA and the Coastal People Party in the RAAS, and “not to register the candidates presented by YATAMA in the RAAN, because the organization had not complied with the time limit established in the Electoral Act” were arbitrary. The Nicaraguan Electoral Act stipulates that, when the period for presenting candidates has expired, if the Council denies a request or rejects a candidate, “within the three days following the decision, it shall notify the political party that presented [the request or candidate] so that it can proceed to correct the defects or substitute the candidates”; (b) The Supreme Electoral Council indicated in its resolution of August 15, 2000, that YATAMA had not complied with the time limit established in the Electoral Act, which could “only refer to the period of six months provided for in Article 77 of the Electoral Act,” the minimum lapse that should transpire between the recognition of the legal status of the political party and the date of the elections. However, the Supreme Electoral Council had acknowledged YATAMA’s status as a political party on May 4, 2000; namely six months before the 2000 municipal elections, thus complying with the requirement established in Article 77 of the Electoral Act; and (c) The State “deprived the candidates of YATAMA for the municipal elections of November 5, 2000, of the right to a fair trial, to be heard and to exercise their right to defense, by failing to provide for a simple and effective recourse under domestic law to contest the resolutions of the Supreme Electoral Council.” 143. Arguments of the representatives of the alleged victims (a) The resolution of the Supreme Electoral Council “did not give any type of reasoning with regard to [...] the decisions it contained” and, when ordering that the candidates should not be registered as they had not been presented Director General for Political Parties of the Supreme Electoral Council with regard to the RAAS, which was forwarded to the representatives and to the Commission. They were requested, when submitting their comments, to include an explanation on the differences that might arise when comparing the different lists of alleged victims in the RAAS with the list presented by the State in this attestation, and neither the Commission nor the representatives provided any explanation as regards the fact that the attestation only included the name of “Clarinda Catalina Hamphys Moses.” 140 In the case of William Martin, whose registration as a candidate was requested, according to the representatives, following the resolution of the Supreme Electoral Council that excluded the PPC and who does not appear in the attestation regarding the RAAS issued on May 3, 2005, by the Director for Political Parties of the Supreme Electoral Council (supra para. 49), the Court will consider him an alleged victim because he appears on the list that accompanied the application filed by the Commission and on the list that the petitioners presented in the proceeding before the latter, which appears in appendix 6 to the application.