The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) will have to wait three weeks to learn the fate of its ap­peal over the dis­missal of its elec­tion pe­ti­tion for the dis­trict of Lengua/In­di­an Walk.

Ap­pel­late judges Char­maine Pem­ber­ton, Vasheist Kokaram, and Car­la Brown-An­toine re­served their judg­ment to March 26 af­ter hear­ing sub­mis­sions, from lawyers for the UNC, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) dur­ing a hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. 

What­ev­er the out­come, the ap­peal pan­el’s de­ci­sion will be fi­nal as un­der the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, elec­tion pe­ti­tions are on­ly heard by the lo­cal courts with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of a fi­nal ap­peal be­fore the coun­try’s high­est court, the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil. 

In the event that the par­ty does not suc­ceed in the ap­peal, a by-elec­tion will have to take place.

The elec­tion of a new chair­man for the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion is al­so de­pen­dent on the case as the in­cum­bent chair­man will re­main in place un­til a coun­cil­lor for the dis­trict is de­ter­mined and an elec­tion can take place. 

Even if it los­es the pe­ti­tion and the by-elec­tion, the UNC will still con­trol the cor­po­ra­tion hav­ing se­cured the nine re­main­ing dis­tricts. 

In the ap­peal, the par­ty is con­tend­ing that High Court Judge Maris­sa Robert­son got it wrong when she re­ject­ed the pe­ti­tion in Jan­u­ary. 

The pe­ti­tion was based on what tran­spired in two suc­ces­sive re­counts for the dis­trict that oc­curred when PNM can­di­date Aut­ly Granthume was an­nounced as the win­ner over UNC can­di­date Nicole Gopaul af­ter the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions in Au­gust, last year.

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

At the end of the first re­count, 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 Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer due to the fail­ure of the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer to place their ini­tials on it. 

A sec­ond re­count yield­ed the same re­sult as the first.

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions, yes­ter­day, Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, who led the UNC’s le­gal team, claimed that EBC of­fi­cials did not have the au­thor­i­ty to re­ject the bal­lot as it did not have the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer’s ini­tials. 

“It doesn’t mat­ter whether it was right or wrong­ly cast. You are tak­ing away a man’s right to vote,” Ram­lo­gan said. 

“You don’t on­ly have the right to vote but you have a right to have it count­ed,” he added. 

Stat­ing that Par­lia­ment did not pre­scribe any penal­ty for the lack of the ini­tials in the Elec­tion Rules, Ram­lo­gan sug­gest­ed that EBC of­fi­cials had the pow­er to “cure” the is­sue dur­ing the re­count. 

In re­sponse, the EBC’s lawyer Deb­o­rah Peake, SC, claimed that Jus­tice Robert­son’s judg­ment could not be fault­ed. 

“It can­not be count­ed be­cause it was re­ject­ed. It should not have gone in the bal­lot box,” she said. 

“If there is no sig­na­ture there is no way to ver­i­fy,” she added. 

She main­tained that her client had no au­thor­i­ty to cor­rect the er­ror af­ter it was dis­cov­ered. 

“There is no cor­rec­tive pow­er. You can­not give the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer a pow­er that does not ex­ist in law,” she said. 

Re­spond­ing to claims from Ram­lo­gan that the EBC al­so claimed that the bal­lot did not have a polling sta­tion num­ber at­tached to it when the par­ty first sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to pur­sue the pe­ti­tion, Peake not­ed that the lack of ini­tials was raised in the pres­ence of the par­ty’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives dur­ing the ini­tial count and re­counts. 

She al­so point­ed out that the par­ty’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives on­ly ob­ject­ed to the re­jec­tion of the bal­lot af­ter they re­alised the elec­tion end­ed in a stale­mate and it con­tained a vote for their can­di­date. 

The UNC was rep­re­sent­ed by Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Sad­dam Ho­sein, and Natasha Bis­ram. Ravi Heffes-Doon ap­peared along­side Peake for the EBC. The PNM was rep­re­sent­ed by Michael Quam­i­na, SC, Ravi Nan­ga, Ce­leste Jules and Adan­na Bain.