Even if it is true that the incumbent won, they note, few Ivoirians seemed to bother to vote in what many saw as an empty formality.

An empty formality; a piece of parchment.

He added that the objection was an empty formality, as former judges remain free to submit briefs if they omit references to their prior judicial service.

"Just an empty formality," he said.

The right of association would be an empty formality if it protected only the right to join groups that no one could support.

But unlike the empty formality of the first meeting, the tone of this one was said to be hard-nosed and intense.

This ban remained until the revolutions of 1989 and according to critics made the democratic procedures within the party an empty formality.

His tone made the question an empty formality.

It was empty formality; he knew that he was the eldest; he felt twice that old.

Our stand for human freedom is not an empty formality of diplomacy but a founding and guiding principle of this great land.