Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has agreed to dis­close some of its of­fi­cial doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to its de­ci­sion to or­der a fresh Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion for the dis­trict of Lengua/In­di­an Walk. 

The EBC made the con­ces­sion yes­ter­day af­ter an ap­pli­ca­tion for dis­clo­sure by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), pur­suant to its elec­tion pe­ti­tion over the de­ci­sion, came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Na­dia Kan­ga­loo. 

While the sub­stan­tive pe­ti­tion has been as­signed to High Court Judge Maris­sa Robert­son, Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo, who was as­signed as the emer­gency judge dur­ing the Ju­di­cia­ry’s an­nu­al va­ca­tion, dealt with the dis­clo­sure ap­pli­ca­tion and an­oth­er ur­gent ap­pli­ca­tion from PNM can­di­date Aut­ly Granthume seek­ing to in­ter­vene in the case. 

Granthume’s ap­pli­ca­tion was ap­proved at the start of the hear­ing, as it was not chal­lenged by the UNC or the EBC. 

The UNC’s dis­clo­sure ap­pli­ca­tion was much more con­tentious, as it was ini­tial­ly strong­ly re­sist­ed by the EBC. 

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions on be­half of Moru­ga res­i­dent Dene­cia Gopaul-Jones, in whose name the pe­ti­tion was filed, Anand Ram­lo­gan SC said he and his team want­ed to view of­fi­cial EBC doc­u­ments, as they were con­cerned about vary­ing rea­sons giv­en by the EBC for re­ject­ing a bal­lot for UNC can­di­date Nicole Gopaul that would have de­cid­ed the dead­lock for the dis­trict. 

“We have good grounds to com­plain. The EBC said one thing at first and then some­thing dif­fer­ent in their sec­ond let­ter,” Ram­lo­gan said. 

“This is a clas­sic case of the EBC shift­ing the goal­post and mak­ing it up as they go along,” he added. 

He sug­gest­ed that the EBC should not have re­sist­ed the dis­clo­sure ap­pli­ca­tion in the in­ter­est of ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy. 

“The EBC should not take an an­tag­o­nis­tic po­si­tion. It will suf­fer no prej­u­dice,” Ram­lo­gan said. 

“Come clean and tell us what the facts are. Stop play­ing cat and mouse games.”

In re­sponse, Se­nior Coun­sel Deb­o­rah Peake, who led the EBC’s le­gal team, claimed the ap­pli­ca­tion was too broad, as the pe­ti­tion on­ly chal­lenged the han­dling of the dis­put­ed bal­lot. 

“They are on a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion hop­ing some­thing will turn up ... We know what the is­sue is all about and what are the doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to it,” Peake said.

She claimed the nec­es­sary doc­u­ments would be dis­closed by her client when it of­fi­cial­ly files its sub­mis­sions in re­sponse to the pe­ti­tion lat­er this month. 

Peake al­so took is­sue with Ram­lo­gan’s com­ments about her client.

“We are not par­tial to one po­lit­i­cal par­ty or try­ing to hide any­thing. None of those things are true. There is noth­ing that war­rants those un­for­tu­nate al­le­ga­tions. The EBC has a statu­to­ry du­ty to per­form,” Peake said. 

Peake even­tu­al­ly agreed to dis­close the dis­put­ed bal­lot, the en­ve­lope it was placed in, and re­ca­pit­u­la­tion sheets in­di­cat­ing the votes cast for each can­di­date at the polling sta­tion where the dis­put­ed vote was cast. 

The doc­u­ments are to be de­liv­ered to the Supreme Court Reg­is­trar by next Wednes­day, to al­low the UNC’s team to in­spect them. 

In her fi­nal or­der, Jus­tice Kan­ga­loo agreed to or­der the dis­clo­sure of most of the doc­u­ments ini­tial­ly sought by the UNC, as she sug­gest­ed that it may ap­ply for fur­ther dis­clo­sure based on their analy­sis of the doc­u­ments the EBC agreed to pro­vide. 

The pe­ti­tion is based on what tran­spired in two suc­ces­sive re­counts for the dis­trict that oc­curred af­ter Granthume was an­nounced as the win­ner over Gopaul, af­ter the LGE on Au­gust 14. 

Granthume ini­tial­ly re­ceived 1,430 votes com­pared to Gopaul’s 1,425. 

At the end of the first re­count, which be­gan the day af­ter the elec­tion and con­clud­ed the fol­low­ing day, both can­di­dates were found to have re­ceived 1,428 votes. 

How­ev­er, a spe­cial bal­lot in favour of Gopaul, which would have bro­ken the tie, was re­ject­ed by the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer due to the fail­ure of the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer to place their ini­tials on it. 

Gopaul’s elec­tion agent Alvin Lutch­man and her count­ing agent, at­tor­ney Ash­ley Badal, ob­ject­ed to the des­ig­na­tion but were over­ruled. A sec­ond re­count sev­er­al days lat­er yield­ed the same re­sult as the first. 

How­ev­er, Gopaul’s of­fi­cials again ob­ject­ed to the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the bal­lot and were over­ruled by As­sis­tant Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Pamela Ogiste. 

When the UNC sought to con­firm the EBC’s de­ci­sion in or­der to pur­sue the pe­ti­tion, the EBC main­tained the rea­son­ing for re­ject­ing the bal­lot and al­so con­tend­ed that Gopaul’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive did not ob­ject by re­quest­ing that the queried bal­lot be marked with a “Q”, as re­quired based on Elec­tion Rules un­der the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act. 

In sub­se­quent cor­re­spon­dence, the EBC claimed that Gopaul’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive on­ly ob­ject­ed af­ter they re­alised the re­count end­ed in a stale­mate. It al­so claimed that the bal­lot was al­so re­ject­ed be­cause it did not con­tain a polling sta­tion num­ber. 

Gopaul-Jones is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Sad­dam Ho­sein and Natasha Bis­ram. 

Granthume was rep­re­sent­ed by Michael Quam­i­na, SC, Ravi Nan­ga, Ce­leste Jules and Adan­na Bain. 

The EBC was rep­re­sent­ed by Ravi Heffes-Doon, Alana Bisses­sar and Stephan Ma­haraj.