The Venice Commission wishes to stress once again that free and fair elections are an essential feature of a democratic state, and that only transparency, impartiality and independence from politically motivated manipulation will ensure the proper administration of the election process throughout the entire election cycle, and especially from the pre-election period to the end of the counting of the votes and the processing of the results. Both the central electoral commission and the electoral tribunal should be duly shielded from political pressure. Mechanisms of criminal and disciplinary accountability of electoral commissions and tribunals should be established and should be effective, but they should not expose their members to political pressure. It should be underlined that neither members of the EMBs nor electoral judges need political trust; they have to act in accordance with the law, and this is the basis for public trust in them and in the electoral bodies.