Monrovia – The National Elections Commission (NEC) Independent hearing officer, Cllr. Muana Ville, has had hearing in a motion filed by the ruling Unity Party to intervene in the case involving Charles Walker Brumskine and Harrison Karnwea, Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates of the Liberty Party versus the NEC.
Report by Henry Karmo [email protected]
The legal team for the Unity party was represented by Cllrs. Varney Sherman, Benedict Sannoh, and Lavala Supuwood while NEC was represented by its team of legal counsel, including Cllrs. Musa Dean, Alexander Zoe and Joseph Blidi.
In their motion, UP referred to as the Intervener, filed a motion to intervene contemporaneously with the filing of their complaint and prayed the National Elections Commission (NEC) to take administrative notice thereof.
As part of their argument, the legal team representing UP argued that the law provides that on timely application a person may be allowed to intervene in an action or proceeding when the representation of the applicant’s interest by existing parties may be inadequate and the applicant is or may be bound by a judgement/decision in the action/proceeding.
Quoting session 5.61 of the Civil Procedure law, section 5.61(b) the law also provides that a person may be allowed to intervene in an action or proceeding when the applicant’s claims or defense and the main action/proceedings have a question of law and fact in common.
Sherman and colleagues also said, Joseph Nyumah Boakai and James Emmanuel Nuquay, co- intervenors, were candidates for the President and Vice President, respectively, of the October 10, 2017 elections and that they contested on the ticket of the UP, also a co—intervenor.
On the other hand, Cllr. Musa Dean and his team argued that the Unity party did live up to the constitutional requirement which calls for timely intervention and prayed the hearing officer to throw out the Unity Party Motion.
The NEC legal team cited article 83 (C) as reference for their call to the NEC independent presiding officer to throw out the case. Article 83 ‘C’ states, “Returns of the Elections shall be declared by the Elections Commission not later than fifteen days after the casting of ballot.
Any party of candidate, who complains about the manner in which the elections were conducted or who challenges the results thereof shall have the right to file a complaint with the Elections Commission. Such complaint must be filed not later than seven days after announcement of the election.”
In argument against the defending team, Sherman accused NEC of failing to inform the Unity Party who is a party of interest in the case LP versus NEC, who may one way or the other be injured or affected by the decision on the LP request to have a rerun of the October 10 elections.