Despite being granted leave by the High Court to challenge the election results of six United National Congress (UNC) seats, former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj is maintaining that there is “no legal basis” under the Constitution for this matter to succeed.
Yesterday, Maharaj spoke about Justice Mira Dean-Armorer’s decision, stating that even though leave was granted “the court can still dismiss it as an abuse of process.”
Maharaj said when a court grants leave, arguments are heard and detailed facts presented on both sides.
He said people were granted leave to either apply for judicial review or file an election petition.
“When the judge sees all the facts and listens to both sides, he could find there is no basis for it. One must always remember that under the Representation of the People Act, for an election petition to succeed, the person who files the petition must convince the court that the election results would have been different, if the impugned action did not occur.”
Maharaj said he had no doubt that “the court would rule against the UNC.”
Maharaj drew reference to a 2000 election petition filed by the PNM, arguing that the UNC’s Winston Peters and William Chaitan were citizens of the United States and Canada, respectively, when they filed their nominations papers to contest the general election.
“I was the attorney general at that time. I can tell the population that these election petitions would not succeed.”