election petition

Pariwa through his lawyer, Martin Kombri, wanted to dismiss the petition alleging grounds of abuse of process.

The application was filed arguing that the election petition Rules and the Organic Law were breached when the petition was prepared by the lawyers assisting the petitioner and not by the petitioner (Mr Yama) himself.

A similar application was earlier filed by Pariwa as well raising series of allegations against Yama’s lawyer Ben Lomai of Lomai Attorney but the application was dismissed.

A two-day workshop held in Port Moresby from April 19 to 20^th was facilitated by Deputy Chief Justice Ambeng Kandakasi, Justice Les Gavara-Nanu, Justice Ellenas Batari, Justice David Cannings, Justice Colin Makail and Justice Joseph Yagi.

Twenty four judges and 11 Acting Judges attended the workshop.

Deputy Chief Justice Kandakasi said, “Election 2022 is here and that means, the next five years of the next parliament will be determined by this election.”

They have camped outside the Police station, preventing the Electoral Commission from moving the ballot boxes to Lae for counting.

The people of Simbu are yet to receive an official response from Electoral Commissioner, Patilias Gamato, from a petition they presented last Monday, demanding the change of recount venue from Lae to either Jiwaka, Goroka or Mount Hagen.

The National Court ordered the recount to take place outside of Kundiawa town. Disgruntled supporters presented a petition to the election manager in Kundiawa, demanding the change of venue.

SODELPA, with the National Federation Party, had presented the petition, challenging aspects of the election process.

They planned to call eight witnesses but the court approved only two.

The parties then withdrew the petition.

Mr Rabuka said it was a decision not taken lightly.

He said the parties believed all eight witnesses were crucial to establishing the grounds for the petition.

Justice Ellenas Batari was of the view the grounds presented by Dr Hamiya had no merits.

Dr Hewali Hamiya raised issues in the petition regarding conduct of the election and the lack of scrutiny provided by the Electoral Commission.

He alleged other irregularities of the conduct of the election, like hijacking of ballot boxes, use of excess ballot papers’ errors and omissions; and that the Electoral Commission provided poor scrutiny on the conduct of the election.

A three-man Supreme Court bench heard the review on June 27 and dismissed the review today for being incompetent.

The full court found that there were additional grounds, filed in the substantive review.

Those grounds were not included in the leave stage of the review.

Justice Ambeng Kandakasi said challenging an election result is serious and the onus is on the petitioner to get the pleadings right, failure to do so has resulted in the dismissal of many good petitions.

Justice George Manuhu dismissed the petition on Friday at the Wewak National Court.

Joseph Yopyyopy won the Wosera-Gawi seat with 10,822 votes while Francis Baindu, the first runner-up, collected 7,896 votes.

With a difference of 2,926 votes, Baindu filed the petition on seven counts of bribery.

Only two counts of bribery proceeded to the substantive trial which commenced early this week at the Wewak National Court.

The petition was dismissed on May 28 after trial.

Justice Collin Makail dismissed the petition earlier because the petitioner, Pini, failed to establish that polling was compromised by the setting aside of six ballot boxes.

He has since filed a review in the Supreme Court.

An application seeking leave to review the dismissal will be heard in the Supreme Court on 9 July at 3pm.

Another Supreme Court review arising from an election petition that went for directions today before Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia was the North Fly petition.

The National Court dismissed Andy Bawa and Michael Kandiu’s petitions, stopping it from advancing to full trial after it failed the test of competency.

Both election petitions claimed that Parkop’s declaration was done before he attained an absolute majority.  

Kandiu complained on the lack of proper scrutiny however, the National Court saw that he did not demonstrate that the results of the poll were likely to be affected.

A three-man Supreme Court bench reinstated the case for trial in the National Court.

Out of the 79 petitions filed disputing election results last year, Potape’s petition is the first to be remitted to the National Court after a successful review by the Supreme Court.

It was dismissed on January 24 as it was found to be incompetent. The National Court saw that essential facts that should have been pleaded to support the two grounds of the petition were not stated.