By Frank Sainworla, Jr. fsainworla@yahoo.com
Some acts committed by the National Elections Commission (NEC) in the October 10, 2017 presidential and legislative elections were “fraudulent and calculated to cheat,’’ Justice Kabineh Janeh says in his dissenting Opinion at Liberia’s Supreme Court.
Justice Janeh was the only one on the 5-member Supreme Court bench to oppose Thursday’s ruling which dismisses massive fraud allegations and call for annulment of the results to conduct rerun elections on grounds that evidence was insufficient.
“I am furthered deeply troubled and perturbed over the majority decision of the bench. This direction leaves this nation with more questions than answers,” the long-serving Supreme Court Judge passionately said.
Flanked by the other four Justices in the high court’s chamber at the Temple of Justice in Monrovia, Justice Janeh believes that there are enough evidence to show that the October 10 polls were conducted in violation of Liberian law and standards for credible election, thus the need to set aside the results.
He pointed to what he considers as contradictions in the majority opinion, when they acknowledged that some fraud did occur and that NEC has a dirty voters roll.
According to him, the majority Justices seem to “ignore what the other side of the dirt is,” wondering how the dirt impacted the valid votes cast in the recent presidential and legislative elections.
“It’s deeply disconcerting to say the least” to talk about how the level of the violations would not have altered the results of the polls, suggesting it could be “pretense”.
The dissenting Supreme Court Justice went on to say that “fraud by law is proven when it veciate everywhere
Justice Janeh then took his colleagues on the bench to task for what he considers as downplaying a very crucial plaintiff witness testimony of US-trained Liberian IT/data expert, Jeff Gbleebo.
He said Gblebo’s testimony pointed extensively to some evidence of fraud in the October 10 polls, recounting how examination of the NEC’s voters roll data given to political parties on flashdrive “demonstrated evidence to prove fraud.”
Justice Janeh further argued that the data expert’s analysis discovered two separate voter rolls and missing polling places amounting to some 35,000 registered voters.
Gblebo’s analysis, he said discovered 58 pages of voters registration numbering 200 voters; same ID number to multiple names, etc.
“I find it unfortunate how I’ve found it difficult to harmonize my legal opinion with that of my colleagues. But this (his opinion) should be filed and put on record for posterity to judge,” Justice Kabineh Janeh concluded his dissenting opinion on Thursday.