29
109. Article 80(1)(d) of the same law provides that the judicial action may be filed by the
citizen when:
He considers that his political and electoral right to be elected has been violated, when, having
been proposed by a political party, his registration as a candidate to an elected office is unduly
denied (italics added).
110. The Court underscores that it is important that States regulate judicial recourses so
that the individual has legal certainty and guarantees of his conditions of access. After
examining the arguments and the evidence provided, particularly the laws and the case law
submitted by the State on the requirements to ensure the validity of the proceedings, the
Court understands that the requirements for filing the judicial protection proceedings are
always those established in Article 79 of the Law on Contesting Electoral Matters and, in
certain cases, also the factual assumptions for admissibility established in Article 80 thereof.
The Court observes that, in the same case law provided by the State, the Electoral Tribunal
clarifies that “from the interpretation of the word ‘when,’ in Article 80(1) of the Law on
Contesting Electoral Matters, it is clear that it is used as an adverb of time and with the
meaning of ‘at the time,’ ‘at the moment,’ ‘on the occasion that,’ because all the
subparagraphs that follow this expression refer to the fact that the action can be filed at the
time or moment when the facts observed in each hypothesis occurred”32 (italics added).
111. In other words, every citizen has active legal capacity to file the recourse under
Article 79; but when he himself alleges specific violations of his political rights “the action
can be filed at the time or moment at which the facts observed in each hypothesis occurred”
according to Article 80, which implies that the conditions referred to in this Article of the
Law on Contesting Electoral Matters are really only de facto assumptions, that condition the
admissibility of the judicial action for the protection of the political and electoral rights of the
citizen. Article 80 imposes the condition that the citizen has been postulated by a political
party and, in that capacity, his registration as a candidate for elected public office has been
denied.
112. As the Court observes, in addition to the fact that both Article 79 and Article 80 of
the Law on Contesting Electoral Matters are in the chapter “On admissibility,” a distinction is
made between the general requirements for admissibility of the judicial action for protection
and the specific assumptions that, in certain cases, condition this admissibility in relation to
political and electoral rights. Regarding admissibility, the action must be filed by an
individual and it is not necessary that the person files it under the auspices of a political
party, as the State maintains when affirming that the requirements of admissibility are
those in Article 79 of the Law on Contesting Electoral Matters. However, the law establishes
and the case law of the Electoral Tribunal has ratified, that a condition sine qua non that
must be complied with by anyone specifically claiming his right to be elected is to have been
proposed by a political party prior to the refusal to register him as a candidate for public
office. This condition, even though it is not a requirement for the general admissibility of the
judicial action according to Article 79, conditions its admissibility when the undue refusal to
register a candidacy for elected office is alleged, which means that the action for the
protection of political and electoral rights is only accessible, as regards the political right to
be elected, to individuals who were proposed by a political party and not to any person
entitled to political rights.
32
Cf. Case law J.02/2000 of the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (final
arguments of the State, merits file, tome IV, folios 1256 and 1257).