The most basic questions are why a legal
framework is important to democratic elections and what exactly is meant by the
term “legal framework”? The first
question is well answered by a publication of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) entitled, Promoting
Legal Frameworks for Democratic Elections:
Establishing the “rules of the game” for elections should be a vital
concern to political parties, candidates and citizens alike. Democratic elections
serve to settle fairly and peacefully the competition among those seeking to
exercise governmental powers as representatives of the people. Democratic
elections also serve as the means for citizens to express freely their will as
to who shall have the authority and legitimacy to wield the reins of government
as their representatives. It is thus in the direct and immediate interests of
electoral contestants – political parties and candidates – and of the
population as a whole – citizens and their associations – to ensure that the
rules for electoral competition, as well as the way those rules are enforced,
guarantee that a genuine democratic election takes place.[i]
From an electoral point of view, “legal framework” has both a broad and a
technical meaning. Broadly speaking, a legal framework may be seen as the
entirety of a group of constitutional, legislative, regulatory, jurisprudential
and managerial rules that together establish the voting rights used by citizens
to elect representative officials. In a more technical sense, the legal
framework can also be seen as a collection of procedural techniques. From this topic’s
point of view, “legal framework” is understood in both such meanings however
the default approach will be to develop a working definition of “legal framework”
as broad as possible in order to achieve a more fulsome understanding.
Indeed, a legal framework may also be further extended by electoral
regulations that authorize citizens to use public powers on their own (using
legal devices to achieve legislative goals, to define public policies, to
impeach any public officer). Elections are neither the only way to elect public
officials (there are legal and randomly made appointments; besides, elections
are also undertaken by collegiate institutions such as corporations’ boards
following no electoral laws whatsoever) nor are used to exclusively to select
public officials. As a matter of fact, citizens also use elections to accept or
reject legislative bills, governmental decisions or resolutions taken by a public
authority (referendum, collective lawsuits and impeachments are used to do so).
[i] Patrick
Merloe, Promoting Legal Frameworks for
Democratic Elections: An NDI Guide for Developing Election Laws and Law
Commentaries (Washington D.C.: National Democratic Institute for International
Afairs (NDI), 2008: 1).
