DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE AD HOC ALEJANDRO MONTIEL ARGÜELLO 1. Under Nicaraguan legislation, the Electoral Power, independent of the three traditional branches of government, is responsible for the organization, administration and supervision of elections. The highest body of the Electoral Power is the Supreme Electoral Council, which has jurisdictional and administrative functions. It is evident that the registration of candidates to participate in the elections was an electoral jurisdictional function that required a decision on whether a party or alliance of parties presenting a request was legally authorized to present it, whether the request complied with the legal requirements, and whether the candidates fulfilled the necessary conditions. 2. In this case, the Supreme Electoral Council exercised its functions by denying the registration of the candidates presented by YATAMA for mayors, deputy mayors and municipal councilors in the Autonomous Regions of the Atlantic Coast for the elections held in 2000. The resolution issued by the Supreme Electoral Council constituted the culmination of a process to determine whether YATAMA had the right to present candidates and, concerning this process, no specific violation has been alleged of the judicial guarantees contained in Article 8(2) of the Convention, which, using a broad interpretation, has been applied to many types of proceedings and not merely to criminal proceedings. 3. Regarding Article 23 (Right to Participate in Government) of the American Convention on Human Rights it has been alleged that it has been violated because the YATAMA candidates were prevented from participating in the elections. It has also been alleged that Article 24 (Right to Equal Protection) has been violated, because the YATAMA candidates were required to comply with the same conditions as non-indigenous candidates, and that Article 25 (Judicial Protection) has been violated, because a recourse to protect participation in the elections had not been provided for. 4. It should be noted that Article 23(2) grants the States the right to regulate the exercise of political rights exclusively on the basis of age and some other conditions. Regulations for other reasons are contrary to the Convention and constitute violations of rights. Nevertheless, the regulations that are permitted, even though only with restrictions, refer to the individual, because this provision cannot be interpreted in the sense that all other regulations, even though they do not refer to the individual, violate human rights, since it is evident that in order to hold elections, it is necessary to regulate the parties that can participate in them, the nomination of the candidates of these parties, and many other issues. It is on the basis of these regulations that elections can be held in an orderly manner and be representative of the people’s will, and it was in application of these permitted regulations that the Supreme Electoral Council denied the registration of the YATAMA candidates. 5. With regard to Article 24, it was precisely in application of the principle of equality that the indigenous candidates were required to fulfill the same conditions as the non-indigenous candidates. With the exception of very special cases, a State cannot have different laws for each of the races that compose it for the election of authorities who exercise their functions in territories inhabited by different races, such as the municipalities of the Autonomous Regions.