The European Court on Human Rights (hereinafter, “ECtHR”) has not seen in election thresholds as such, a violation of the rights set out in Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections). In the case of Yumak and Sadak v. Turkey, the applicants alleged that the electoral threshold of 10% imposed nationally for parliamentary elections interfered with the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature. In its assessment, the ECtHR considered that the electoral threshold of 10% imposed nationally for the representation of political parties in Parliament constituted interference with the applicants’ electoral rights. The threshold pursued the legitimate aim of avoiding excessive and debilitating parliamentary fragmentation and thus of strengthening governmental stability. The Court noted, however, that the effects of an electoral threshold could differ from one country to another and that the role played by thresholds varied in accordance with the level at which they were set and the party system in each country. The Court therefore considered that it should examine the correctives and other safeguards in place in the Turkish system in order to assess their effects. In the case at hand, the ECtHR was not persuaded that, having regard to the specific political context of the elections in question, and to the correctives which had limited its effects in practice (notably:
possibility of standing as an independent candidate which permitted the election of a number of members of parliament from the Kurdish party; the possibility to form an electoral coalition with other political groups; the role of the constitutional court), the impugned 10% threshold had hadthe effect of impairing the essence of the applicants’ rights under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1.