organisations of civil society to invite to submit nominations for membership of the electoral body. 176. The Court considers that, borrowing from the process of elections for national CSO representatives for membership of the Economic Social and Cultural Council, an organ of the African Union, the best practice is where the nomination process for representatives of CSOs and opposition parties in the electoral body is driven by authority those entities, to organise based themselves, on pre-determined consult, hold criteria, elections as and with necessary, the and submit the required nominees. The Court holds that this practice would be in line with the international obligations of the Respondent State to ensure public trust and transparency in the management of public affairs and citizens’ effective participation in democratic processes, as required by Article 3(7), Article 3(8) and Article 13 of the ACDEG, as well as its obligation to ensure that the electoral body has the confidence ECOWAS 177. The of all the political actors as prescribed by Article 3 of the Democracy Protocol. Court further notes that the Respondent State does not refute that the government has discretionary power to potentially reject members proposed by the respective proposing entities, as was asserted by the Applicants. If a rejection would be based on criteria that reveal an unjustifiable bias by the government, then such a rejection would in fact undermine the independence of the electoral body. However, the Court notes the Respondent States’ observation that it had not rejected any proposed member. 178. Regarding the Applicants’ contention that the oath taken by the members of the electoral body is not sufficient to ensure credibility in the independence impartiality of the members of the electoral body, the Court and finds that the Applicants have failed to sufficiently support their argument about the inadequacy of this measure, which is otherwise considered a pertinent guarantee of independence and impartiality. 39