{"id":363,"date":"2008-10-06T22:39:42","date_gmt":"2008-10-07T02:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/digest\/?p=363"},"modified":"2011-03-21T13:50:48","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T17:50:48","slug":"echr-upholds-turkeys-10-threshold-in-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2008\/10\/echr-upholds-turkeys-10-threshold-in-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"ECHR Upholds Turkey&#039;s 10% Threshold in Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on July 8 in the case of <a href=\"http:\/\/cmiskp.echr.coe.int\/tkp197\/view.asp?action=html&amp;documentId=837656&amp;portal=hbkm&amp;source=externalbydocnumber&amp;table=F69A27FD8FB86142BF01C1166DEA398649\" target=\"_blank\">Yumak &amp; Sadak v. Turkey<\/a>.  The case was brought by the plaintiffs after they lost in Turkey&#8217;s recent parliamentary elections.  Although eighteen parties participated in the elections, only two were able to garner enough votes nationally to meet the 10% threshold necessary to be seated in the Parliament. As a result, Turkey&#8217;s new Assembly is the least representative since the multi-party system was introduced.  The plaintiffs alleged that the high threshold interfered with the right to free elections, which is protected by Article 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, the Grand Chamber found that the 10% electoral threshold was not a violation of the Convention. However, it did admit that such a threshold would generally seem &#8220;excessive&#8221;.  In its opinion, the Grand Chamber twice cited an article by Ricardo Zimbron entitled &#8220;The Unappreciated Margin: Turkish Electoral Politics Before the European Court of Human Rights,&#8221; which had been previously published in Harvard International Law Journal.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, please click <a href=\"http:\/\/echrblog.blogspot.com\/2008\/07\/ballot-box-judgments.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on July 8 in the case of Yumak [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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