As stated in the Code of good practice in electoral matters, the applicant’s right to a hearing involving both parties must be protected. An oral hearing is a means to provide the parties to justify the relevance of their requests in a speedy manner as well as to ask questions to the other parties in order to point out the substance of the dispute. In some cases, an oral hearing is necessary to hear the witnesses in a speedy manner, giving the parties a chance to ask questions to the witnesses. The aims of the transparency – i.e. the overall trust in electoral processes – can be ensured if the stakeholders are able to inspect whether all similar cases have been solved in an equal manner and whether the reasoning of the decisions is verifiable.There are not many countries with specific rules on the right to request an oral hearing of the case or the competent institution’s obligation to provide an oral hearing. However, this does not mean that an oral hearing is explicitly excluded in all the other countries analysed.