MOSCOW, May 30 (RAPSI) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday that Russian authorities had violated rights of several individuals to participate in free elections to the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg back in December 2011, the court’s ruling reads on Tuesday.

The applicants in this case were registered voters with five of them being candidates to the Assembly as representatives of the Just Russia party and others being members of the electoral commissions or observers. They alleged that the commissions in the city’s Kolpino District participated in mass falsifications of election results in favor of the ruling party during the recounts of registered votes.

Two applicants found the discrepancy between the original records of casted votes, obtained from Precinct Electoral Commissions, and final results presented by the City Electoral Commission. They challenged the results first with the Commission itself but the appeals were transferred to the Kolpino District Prosecutor, a decision later approved by a local court. Local authorities refused to open criminal investigation into the alleged falsifications finding evidence insufficient.

The Supreme Court of Russia refused to proceed with the complaint against the election results noting that “the court had no competence to examine such a complaint, since the alleged violations did not affect the rights of the voters, but may have affected the rights of the parties which had participated in the elections”.

On July 2, 2014, the Chairman of the Central Elections Commission asked to check the authenticity of the original election protocols relied upon by the applicants. Forensic expertise concluded that some of the copies differed from the ones submitted to the City Electoral Commission. On November 14, 2014, an investigator decided that there was no need to open investigation into the alleged crime in view of the expiry of the two-year statutory limit.

Russian authorities denied statements on restriction and infringement of the rights of voters and candidates, noting that the five applicants continued their political activities.

The ECHR ruled that there was a violation of Article 3 (Right to free elections) of the Protocol 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights.