The United Workers Party (UWP) has filed an appeal against the decision of high court judge Raulston Glasgow who dismissed their ten (10) election petitions filed after the December 2019 general elections.
In their notice of “appeal”, they claim that they “were dissatisfied with the decision of Justice Glasgow.”
“The Appellant will argue that the learned Judge specifically erred in law and in fact in making the findings in the extracts of his judgment set out.”
They are asking that the Order of the High Court Judge is set aside with cost to the Appellants/Petitioners and that the Notice of Motion by which the Respondents seek to strike out the 10 Petitions is “dismissed.”
The UWP claims that the December 2019 general election won by the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) was won by fraud, treating, bribery and manipulation.
In his 120 judgment, Justice Glasgow stated, “The pleadings failed to include particulars that would seek to identify whether the claim breaches all the irregularities affected or may have affected the outcome of the elections.”
According to him, he is careful at arriving at his decision because the petitioners are entitled to bring evidence to substantiate their contentions.
“But I cannot agree, that the petitioners will know the case, and do not have not one factual basis set out on the pleadings to how a breach of the law and how it would have affected the outcome of the elections,” he stated.
On the issue of Mellisa Skerrit holding a Canadian passport and traveling on it, the judge stated that the petitioners failed to prove the necessary evidence to prove the principle of foreign law that would disqualify her.
“The petitioners failed to plead the alleged foreign law and accordingly this also has been struck off,” he said.
“Even though I find that all of those respondents were properly joined, (except DBS) the pleadings against them are inadequate and insufficient…they did not disclose a cause of action, lack of necessary details, etc and they are therefore struck out,” the judge said.
He also pointed out that while it was not the norm to award cost of such matters he will depart from the norm.
“I have found good reasons to depart from these principles to strike out these petitions. The petitioners have repeated everything verbatim; they could have done that under a single or at the most two petitions. Instead, they had to waste paper, time, and money to respond to all ten petitioners which was unnecessary,” he remarked.
“I hereby order that all ten petitions be struck out and award cost of five thousand dollars to the respondents.”