Supreme Court halts NEC again

The Supreme Court here has with immediate effect halted an ongoing hearing of elections fraud and irregularities filed by ruling Unity Party (UP) before the National Elections Commission (NEC).

An officer from the Supreme Court walked in the James Fromoyan Conference Hall at the NEC Headquarters in Sinkor, suburb of Monrovia on Wednesday, 15 November to serve a writ of summon on all parties before the Commission while the electoral house was entertaining witnesses from the UP.

According to the writ of summon, both the lawyers representing the UP headed by Sen. Varney Sherman and former Justice Minister Benedict Sannoh and the NEC legal team headed by Cllr. Musa Dean are to appear before the Supreme Bench at 3pm [on Thursday, 16 November].

They are commanded to file their briefs before the bench at 10am. The decision of the Supreme Court to summon the parties is based on suit filed by the UP, requesting the speedy intervention of the nation’s highest court.

The UP which is an intervening political party in a case filed before the NEC by opposition Liberty Party (LP) for alleged fraud and irregularities, is making demands for the availability to public all voting records, including results of the elections.

UP’s lead lawyer, Sen. Sherman says the NEC must bring forward records showing the October 10 results in order to verify how it came up with the representatives and presidential election results.

The ruling party sought the attention of the high court, after it sensed that the NEC is not being positioned to provide all the documents requested.

But the lead lawyer of the NEC, Cllr. Dean says the suit is a delay tactics being introduced by the UP to buy time against the 30 days for the conduct of the run-off election.

NEC has repeatedly informed the UP to be specific with allegations rather than fishing all over the place for evidence.

By Lewis Teh–Edited by Winston W. Parley