Furthermore, the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters provides that the deprivation of the right to vote and to be elected can only be based on a criminal conviction for a serious offence imposed by express decision of a court of law.20 However, the European Court has allowed also for the possibility of an additional measure of deprivation from standing for election for a candidate whom a court finds to have exceeded the maximum permitted amount of election expenditure, and qualified such penalty as an ancillary one, not as a criminal sanction.