News
|
||||
Tough
legal battles over local polls The contested rejections were mainly over disputed questions concerning allegedly underaged youth candidates in the nomination lists of the UNP for the Colombo Municipal Council and the UPFA for the Gampaha Municipal Council. Objections had been raised to the nomination lists of the two main parties by the JVP, another contestant party at the local government polls. The youth quota had been brought in for local government polls by an amendment to the Local Authorities Elections Law in 1990. The amended law, read together with another amendment in 1987, stipulates that a ‘youth’ means a person “not less than eighteen years as at first June of the year in which the revision of the operative electoral register commenced...” In the Court of Appeal, Justices K Sripavan and Sisira de Abrew issued notice in the UPFA writ petition against the rejection of the UPFA Gampaha nomination list on grounds that one of the candidates was underage. The Returing Officer had been acting according to instructions issued by the Elections Commissioner to calculate youth candidates as those candidates who are of the age of majority by 1st June 2004, (on the basis that revision of the electoral register for 2004 commenced in 2004). The UPFA challenged this rejection stating that 2005 was the year in which the revision of the operative register commenced and that the rejected candidate fell within the classification of a youth candidate. Considering the issues, the Appeal Court, on March 2nd, issued notice on eleven respondents including election officers and the secretaries of the other contesting political parties. However, the petitioner reserved the right to interim relief in respect of the rejection of the Gampaha nomination list due to the fact that a special leave to appeal application against the interim relief awarded by the Court of Appeal in a similar matter was due to be taken up in the Supreme Court on the following day, that is March 3rd. In
that case, the Court of Appeal had issued an interim order staying
the operation of the purported order made by the Returning Officer
rejecting the nomination list of the UNP and restraining the Elections
Commissioner from conducting the election of members to the Colombo
Municipal Council scheduled to be held on March 30, 2006 until final
determination of this case. The Elections Commissioner appealed to the Supreme Court against the granting of interim relief pleading that unless the order was vacated, grave and irremediable mischief would be caused in regard to the conducting of the polls. When the special leave application was taken up for hearing on Friday before a Bench consisting Justices Shiranee Bandaranayake, T.B. Weerasuriya and N. E. Dissanayake, Solicitor General C.R. De Silva, appearing in support, stated that the Returning Officer was only under a statutory obligation to communicate the fact of rejection of the nomination list to the affected political party which he had done. In any event, the Returning Officer had gone further and orally informed the UNP as to the reasons for the rejection of the nomination list at that time. In this case, one of the candidates, Supum Lakmal was under 18 years of age on June 1st 2004 as calculated from the date in which revision of the electoral list commenced (which was 1st June 2004) and not the date on which the register was certified, that is 1st June 2005. The order was correct according to Article 31(1) of the Local Authorities Election Ordinance read with the 1990 amendment. He claimed that the rule was that there should be 40% of youth that is between the age of 18 and 35 and the rest could be of over 35 years of age. As one candidate was underage, the 40% component was not in conformity with the rule and therefore the Returning Officer rejected the entire list. Mr. De Silva also said that the Returning Officer had to check the list and also the relevant documents that had to be submitted with the nomination list in one and a half hours. Senior
counsel for the petitioner-respondent UNP, then said it was not
possible for the Returning Officer to do all that in one and a half
hours which was why the officer had only to check the numbers on
the list. His powers were limited to a physical check and a head
count of the list and he could not go further. Solicitor General C.R de Silva P.C. appeared with Deputy Solicitors General A Gnanadasan and Shavindra Fernando and Senior State Counsel N. Pulle for the appellants. Faiz Mustapha P.C. appeared with Upul Jayasuriya, Daya Pelpola, Ronald Perera, Sanjeewa Jayawardena and Raman Cassim for the UNP General Secretary. Dr
Jayantha de Almeida Guneratne P.C. appeared with Parakrama Agalawatte
and Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena for the 9th respondent JVP. |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
