-Historic live broadcast from high court chambers
By William Selmah wselmah@gmail.com
The Supreme Court of Liberia has on Friday made history never seen in recent years by allowing the live broadcast of legal arguments from chambers, the hearing on the Bill of appeal filed by two political parties questioning the results and credibility of the October 10 presidential and legislative elections.
After hearing the arguments of lawyers of the three sides in the elections dispute case, the Supreme Court is due to rule any day from on the appeal from the opposition Liberty Party (LP) and the ruling Unity Party (UP) against the decision of the Board of Commissioners of the National Elections Commission (NEC) to dismiss their claims of massive fraud in the October 10, 2017 elections.
Lawyers representing the LP said in their arguments before the full bench of the Supreme Court that they want a rerun of the polls based on what they see as systematic fraud during the conduct of the first round of voting.
LP of Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine, which came third in the first round, took the NEC to court, accusing the electoral body of fraud, violations of the electoral laws and the constitution, among other allegations.
The LP was represented by its Standard Bearer Cllrs. Charles Walker Brumskine and Oswald Tweh. The party also asked the highest court in the country to rule for the Chairman of NEC, Cllr. Jerome Korkoya to recuse himself in the conduct of future polls.
In its Bill of appeal to the court, LP described NEC’s ruling as erroneous.
“Wherefore and in view of the foregoing, 1st Appellants hereby tender this, as their Bill of Exceptions, for your approval so that your adverse Final Ruling will be reviewed by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Liberia, and reversed.”
The LP further claims that NEC committed a reversible error saying, “although the specific allegations of violation of the Constitution and Elections Law of Liberia, the massive fraud and gross irregularities effectively remain unrefuted by the Apellee.”
The UP, represented by Cllrs. Benedict Sannoh and Lavala Supuwood, which joined the legal battle midway and “in solidarity” with the LP and Alternative National Congress (ANC), supported the LP’s position for a rerun of the polls, provided that the Final voter Registration Roll was not cleaned up.
The NEC lawyers led by Cllr. Musa Dean admitted that the electoral body had some challenges in conducting the October 10 polls, but said the faults were not grave enough to warrant a rerun of elections.
He said the complaining parties were failing to make a distinction between irregularities and fraud.
In line with Liberian law, the Supreme Court is required to rule on the appeal within seven day. That means it has to hand down its ruling the latest next Thursday, to hand down final ruling in the electoral case.
The runoff election due to have been held on November 7, was suspended after the Supreme Court upheld a writ of prohibition from the Brumskine’s LP, restraining the NEC from conducting the polls until complaints filed to the body were duly looked into and disposed off.
The Supreme Court of Liberia is to next week hand down the much anticipated final ruling that will determine either a re-run of the October 10, 2017 polls or the conduct of a runoff between the Coalition for Democratic Change of George Weah and the Unity Party of Joseph Boakai.
Meanwhile, Chief Justice Francis Korkpor has cautioned the Liberian public against pre-juding what the court’s ruling will be.