Amended Electoral Dispute Regulations, November 2016

The CEP's amended electoral dispute regulations, dated November 2016 and published in Le Moniteur of 24 November 2016, superseding the version published on 5 May 2016. The Council states its reason for amending them plainly: to reach real-time handling of the challenges and appeals brought before the dispute organs. The regulations open by barring anyone from sitting on a dispute organ who does not meet the conditions set by the Constitution, electoral law, the code of conduct and the regulations themselves, and by prescribing the oath members swear before the CEP president, and the separate oath the clerk swears before the president of the dispute organ.

They then make a structural point that shapes everything else: electoral dispute bodies are not permanent jurisdictions. They are created for each electoral contest, sit as colleges of judges, and are independent of one another. Three tiers exist, each sitting with three judges: the communal bureau (BCEC), chaired by a drawn member of the communal electoral bureau and completed by a lawyer of the local bar and a judge of the court of first instance, or justices of the peace where first-instance judges are too few; the departmental bureau (BCED), chaired by a drawn member of the departmental electoral bureau on the same pattern; and the national bureau (BCEN).