CCPR/C/72/D/884/1999 page 4 2.7 According to article 22, only the Election Commission registering a list of candidates is competent to alter the list, and then only: (1) By striking a candidate from the list if: … (b) The conditions mentioned under article 9 of the present Law are applicable to the candidate, ..., and, in cases covered by paragraph 1 (a), (b) and (c) of the present article, a candidate may be struck off the list on the basis of an opinion from the relevant institution or by court decision. In the case of a candidate who: ... (8) Does not meet the requirements corresponding to the higher level (3) of language proficiency in the State language, that fact must be certified by an opinion of the SLB. 2.8 Lastly, Ms. Ignatane recalls that, according to statements made by the SLB at the time of the case hearings, the certification board in the Ministry of Education had received complaints about her proficiency in Latvian. It so happens, the author says, that it was just that Ministry that, in 1996, had been involved in a widely publicized controversy surrounding the closure of No. 9 secondary school in Riga, where she was the head teacher. The school was a Russian-language school and its closure had had a very bad effect on the Russian minority in Latvia. The complaint 3. The author claims that, by depriving her of the opportunity to stand for the local elections, Latvia violated articles 2 and 25 of the Covenant. The State party’s observations 4.1 In its observations of 28 April 2000, the State party contests the admissibility of the communication. It claims that the author has not exhausted the domestic remedies available to her. 4.2 The State party also submits that the author does not challenge the conclusions of the State Language Board that her proficiency in Latvian is not of the level required in order to stand for elections (level 3), but only the legality of the Election Commission’s decision to strike her off the list of candidates. The State party considers that the court rulings are lawful and legitimate and in full accordance with Latvian law and, in particular, with article 9, paragraph 7, and article 22, paragraph 8, of the Law on Elections to Town Councils and Municipal Councils. 4.3 The State party is of the view that the provisions of the aforementioned Law comply with the requirements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as provided in the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 25 on article 25, which states that “any conditions which apply to the exercise of the rights protected by article 25 should be based on objective and reasonable criteria”. According to the State party, participation in public affairs requires a high level of proficiency in the State language and such a precondition is reasonable