Monrovia – The Supreme Court of Liberia has summoned the two parties in the case, Charles Walker Brumskine and Harrison Karnwea, Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates of the Liberty Party versus The National Elections Commission (NEC) and Unity Party as Co-complainant.
Report by Henry Karmo, [email protected]
The Court, Wednesday, 15 November 2017, issued the writ through a sheriff. The writ is a result of a complaint filed to that body by Co-complainant Unity Party of being denied necessary information requested from the National Elections Commission, through a subpoena.
According to the co-complainant, after being denied by the hearing officer Muana Ville, the request to subpoena documents, which include the Presiding Officers worksheets and addendum listing amongst others of precincts across the country, they took appeal to the Board of Commissioners and it has been more than a week the Board has not responded, which has led them to run to the Supreme Court.
The pieces of information, according to UP lawyers, are necessary evidences in the on-going hearings now taking place at the National Elections Commissions.
After receiving the writ, the UP legal team prayed the wisdom of the Hearing Officer to allow them recess to have more time to prepare briefings to be submitted to the Supreme Court by 10:00 am Thursday morning.
The request was rejected by the defending council on grounds that the Supreme Court did not place a stay order on the process and they should precede but the hearing officer granted the request and rescheduled the hearings.
Hearing Office Muana Ville, last week granted with amendment lawyers representing the interests of Liberty Party (LP) and the Unity Party (UP) request to subpoena the NEC to provide several electoral documents.
Cllr. Ville in his ruling said, with exception to other documents requested by the UP and LP legal team, which include report on police investigation of a polling staff in Nimba County allegedly caught in electoral fraud and report on the investigation involving a staff from the office of the President, who was alleged to have been in possession of voting cards and printing materials and all polling records, all other record requested were been granted.
In his ruling, he said the cases involving the police investigation are criminal cases as such he doesn’t have the authority to request Criminal Court “C” to provide such records to him, the hearing officer, and because of that he could not grant such request.