RIGHT TO PARTICIPATION IN POLITICAL LIFE AND RIGHT TO FREE ELECTIONS: NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issues of legal analysis of the right to participate in political life and the right to free elections in the context of national and international law. The work reveals the conceptual content of the right to participate in political life and the right to free elections. A legal analysis of the content of the primary international documents in the field of human rights is carried out, which defines the basic principles of the right to participate in political life and the right to free elections. The constitutional foundations of the above rights are indicated. Separate attention is paid to the positions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, in particular, regarding the right to vote, which consists in the ability of a citizen of Ukraine who has reached the age of eighteen on the day of the elections and who has not been recognized by the court as incompetent, as well as electoral law, which means the ability of every citizen of Ukraine, in conditions of freedom of expression and exchange of opinions and information, and free formation of one’s own attitude to participation in elections, to vote and be elected freely. The work names a list of the main international acts that determine the basic characteristics of the right to participate in political life and the right to free elections. Taking into account the specifics of political rights, which include the right to participate in political life and the right to free elections, the author analyzed the content of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the legal steps of Ukraine to create conditions for the implementation of these rights by persons with disabilities. The study argues that, taking into account the modern paradigm of human rights theory, the right to participate in political life and the right to free elections are strategically important from the position of a human-centric approach and value-oriented policy of states. Special attention is paid in the work to the practice of the European Court of Human Rights on the protection of the right to free elections, which is provided for by Article 3 of the Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Key principles for understanding the right to participate in political life and the right to free elections are proposed. The article reveals the main aspects of the correlation, demarcation, and interaction of these rights