The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has crossed the first hur­dle in its chal­lenge of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion's de­ci­sion to ex­tend last Mon­day's gen­er­al elec­tion vot­ing by one hour due to rainy weath­er.

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the UNC, which lost the elec­tion to the PNM 23-18, last night re­ceived leave to pur­sue their pe­ti­tions from High Court Judge Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mour af­ter an emer­gency hear­ing in the Port-of-Spain High Court which end­ed af­ter 7 pm.

Me­dia per­son­nel were not al­lowed in the court for the hear­ing, which was at­tend­ed by un­suc­cess­ful UNC can­di­date for To­co/Man­zanil­la Brent San­cho and EBC chair­man Dr Nor­bert Mas­son.

In a brief in­ter­view af­ter the case, at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge claimed the re­sult vin­di­cat­ed for­mer prime min­is­ter and UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who first took is­sue with the EBC's de­ci­sion af­ter her par­ty's elec­tion de­feat.

"This is a slap in the face of those who be­lieved that it was friv­o­lous and vex­a­tious. This shows that the rule of law pre­vails and in due course we will get our jus­tice," Sturge said.

Giv­en Dean-Ar­mour's rul­ing, the lawyers will now have to file the pe­ti­tions and will then have to wait for a date for the case to be heard.

"We feel that giv­en past ex­pe­ri­ence this is some­thing that is dealt with ex­pe­di­tious­ly. We think it should be dealt with in the space of nine months," Sturge said, adding that the even­tu­al de­ci­sion on the pe­ti­tions could on­ly be ap­pealed to the Court of Ap­peal and not to this coun­try's fi­nal court, the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil.

The UNC was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Ger­ald Ramdeen. The EBC was not rep­re­sent­ed by any at­tor­neys dur­ing the hear­ing, which was held ex-parte.

The UNC is claim­ing that the EBC's rules and the Con­sti­tu­tion give the EBC on­ly the pow­er to ad­journ an elec­tion in in­stances of pub­lic vi­o­lence and not the pow­er to ex­tend the tra­di­tion­al elec­tion time­frame of 6 am to 6 pm. The par­ty is seek­ing to have the court de­clare the re­sults in six mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies null and void. The dis­put­ed con­stituen­cies are San Fer­nan­do West, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, To­co/San­gre Grande, Tu­na­puna, St Joseph and Moru­ga/Table­land.

In the event the par­ty is suc­cess­ful the court may or­der that by-elec­tions be held or may pos­si­bly rule that a de­c­la­ra­tion that the EBC breached its pow­ers be grant­ed.

Re­spond­ing to the UNC's ini­tial threat of the pe­ti­tions last week, the EBC de­fend­ed its po­si­tion and said that sec­tion 71 of the Con­sti­tu­tion gave it au­ton­o­my to man­age the reg­is­tra­tion of vot­ers and the con­duct of the elec­tion in an un­fet­tered man­ner.

Elec­tion re­sults in dis­put­ed con­stituen­cies

Con­stituen­cy UNC PNM

San Fer­nan­do West 6,802 10,112

La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro 7,606 10,428

Tu­na­puna 7,613 11,228

St Joseph 8,903 10,536

Moru­ga/Table­land 10,275 10,808

To­co/San­gre Grande 8,101 12,005