Lawyers for the Elections and Boundaries Commission say the organisation had no choice but to extend last year’s general election by one hour.
So said EBC lawyer, Russell Martineau, SC, as he continued to make submissions in the trial of election petitions filed by the Opposition UNC, which is claiming that the EBC acted illegally in extending the poll on September 7 last year.
Citing reports from the Meteorological Office on that day as well as multiple correspondence from representatives of both political parties, who complained of difficulties due to heavy rain and subsequent flash flooding acrosss Trinidad, Martineau said his client needed to take a decision to ensure that citizens were able to exercise their democratic right.
“It had a duty to act and if it didn’t then people would have been disfranchised,” Martineau said.
Responding to claims from the UNC that the Representation of the People Act does not give the EBC the power to alter the hours of polling, with is within the remit of Cabinet and the President, Martineau stated that the legislation did not deal specifically with the issue of extending the polls but give the EBC “far reaching” powers to manage the conduct of elections in T&T.
“It would be absurd to say that they acted in breach of the law, because they were responding to a very serious situation, which was not contemplated before,” Martineau said.
Asked by presiding judge Mira Dean-Armorer to explain why the extension was not extended to voters in Tobago, Martineau claimed that the EBC received no complaints of adverse weather condition there.
Dealing with the issue raised by the People’s National Movement (PNM) over the UNC’s ability to prove that the election result materially was materially affected by the extension, Martineau said he supported the PNM’s submissions on the issue fully.
Earlier this week, head of the PNM’s legal team, Douglas Mendes, SC, noted that if the votes cast after 6 pm, regardless of the candidate chosen, were to be subtracted from the votes obtained by PNM candidates, they (the PNM candidates) would have still been successful.
The UNC initially filed petitions for six marginal constituencies—La Horquetta/Talparo, Toco/ Sangre Grande, Tunapuna, St Joseph, San Fernando West and Moruga/Tableland.
In March, however, the petition for La Horquetta/Talparo was struck out by Dean-Armorer due to an administrative error by the UNC in filing it. Besides the petitions, Dean-Armorer has also been assigned two cases in which three private citizens are challenging the EBC’s decision.
Social activist, Ravi Balgobin Maharaj, has filed a judicial review seeking the court’s clarification on whether the EBC had the constitutional power to make the decision and Irwin Lyne and Melissa Sylvan are claiming that the EBC breached the constitutional rights of Tobagonians by not allowing them an extension.
Both cases have been deferred as they would be directly affected by the outcome of Dean-Armorer’s decision on the petitions. Martineau is expected to complete his submissions next Monday. Dean-Armorer had promised to deliver her judgment in the case in August.