The Venice Commission’s Code of good practice in electoral matters is the reference document of the Council of Europe in the electoral field. It defines a number of required preconditions for an effective system of appeal. Overall, it leaves to the member States the choice of the appeal body, providing that a final appeal to a court be possible. The Code of good practice in electoral matters also insists on the necessity of a procedure simple and devoid of formalism, in particular concerning the admissibility of appeals. Additionally, the law has to define clearly the powers and responsibilities of the relevant bodies and appeal bodies so as to avoid risks of conflicts of jurisdiction (whether positive or negative) and neither the appellants nor the authorities should be able to choose the appeal body. It recalls that the appeal body must have the authority on the main aspects of an electoral cycle, such as voter and candidate registration, observance of campaigns rules, the outcome of the elections, including the possibility to cancel elections where irregularities may have affected the outcome. Importantly, the Code of good practice in electoral matters recommends that any voter or candidate in the constituency concerned must be entitled to appeal. It recommends also that time limits for lodging and deciding appeals must be short, and finally, that the applicants should have the right to a hearing. All these required preconditions will be developed in the next parts of the present report. It should be noted that the European Court of Human Rights regularly refers to the Code of good practice in electoral matters in its judgments related to Article 3 of the First Additional Protocol of the Convention.