Justice Ian Chang yesterday overruled the summons filed by Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield to have the elections petition filed by the opposition PPP/C parliamentarian Ganga Persaud struck out.
After the in-chamber hearing, Lowenfield’s attorney Roysdale Forde, who said that he is likely to appeal the ruling, explained that he was not able to clearly hear the reason because it was an oral decision in which the judge delivered only the conclusion.
The attorney said that resultantly he will have to await the written decision.
Of the ruling, Forde said, “the decision, in my opinion, is highly flawed and it is likely that an appeal will be filed.”
Justice Chang is set to go into retirement on February 27.
Lowenfield’s contention was that the petition had no material facts and should be struck out.
Lowenfield had challenged the petition, which he had asked the court to strike out on the grounds that the substantive submissions disclosed no reasonable cause of action.
Justice Chang had decided that he would first hear arguments regarding material facts as a prerequisite to determining whether, thereafter, any need would still exist for going into the substantive elections petition case.
To Forde’s argument that sufficient facts had not been pleaded to support the reliefs which were being claimed in the substantive petition, Persaud’s attorney Anil Nandlall had said he disagreed since the petition detailed more than 28 grounds.
Nandlall, the former Attorney General, was adamant that for each ground being contested by the other side, there were sufficient facts pleaded to support them.
Lowenfield had asked the High Court to strike out the elections petition, saying it is “materially defective” because it failed to establish any grounds to vitiate the polls.
The opposition party’s position since the May 11, 2015 general elections is that it has been robbed of votes through a carefully planned rigging process on the part of the APNU+AFC coalition.
In the petition, Persaud called on the court to declare the entire elections process flawed, and containing many procedural errors and so many instances of fraudulent and/or suspicions actions that “the results that have been derived from the process cannot be credibly deemed to represent accurately the will of the electorate.”
He also asked the court to order a recount of all ballots cast in the elections.
Local and international observers have declared that the polls were free and fair.
