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8 for which reason, appellants tender this bill of exceptions for filing and Your Honors consideration. 6. Appellants submit that this Bill of Exceptions is tendered for filing and Your Honors consideration due to all and sundry the numerous and reversible errors committed by the Appellee, National Elections Commission. WHEREFORE AND IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, Appellants pray that Your Honors will reverse and overturn the determination of the Appellee, which states that Co-Appellant Karnwea is barred from contesting the 2017 Presidential and General Elections by the Code of Conduct for Public Officials; and, that Your Honors will rule that Co-Appellant Karnwea is qualified and eligible to, and may indeed contest the elections as the Vice Presidential candidate of the Co-Appellant Liberty Party; and, that Your Honors will grant unto the Appellants any other relief as may be deemed just, legal and equitable.” RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED The Appellants: ____________________________________ Harrison S. Karnwea, Sr. ____________________________________ Liberty Party by and thru their Legal Counsel, BRUMSKINE & ASSOCIATES Oldest Congo Town, Tubman Boulevard Cllr. Powo C. Hilton __________________________________ __________________________________ COUNSELLORS-AT-LAW APPROVED:_________________________________ Jerome G. Korkoya NATIONAL ELECTIONS COM SSION Dated this 10th day of July, A. D. 2017.” We should comment here that we are taken aback that given the importance and critical nature of the electoral process and the sequence of factual events narrated hereinbefore that counsel for the appellants believed that only a single issue was of importance and warranted consideration by this Court. We wonder, for example, if the cardinal principle of due process, couched both in the Liberia Constitution and an enormous number of the statutory laws of Liberia, including the Elections Law and the Code of Conduct, and especially the provisions of the Code of Conduct, upon which the Chairman of the National Elections Commission purported to predicate the decision of that Body to disqualify Co-appellant Harrison S. Karnwea from contesting the vice-presidency in the upcoming and ensuing October 2017 Presidential and General Elections, and which the records clearly showed was denied the appellants, was not of sufficient significance to be addressed by this Court. Indeed, we wonder also if the fact that the Commission did not even

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Karnwea v. National Elections Commission

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether an investigation is necessary to prohibit a candidate from running when they allegedly do not meet the qualifications? Whether the Election Commission may go beyond the statutorily prescribed penalties for not meeting a qualification?

Alleged Acts: Co-appellant, Karnwea, was seeking the Vice Presidency under the Liberty Party and was barred from participating in the October 2017 elections on the bases that he did not meet the two year requirement for resigning from a public corporation in the Code of Conduct. The co-appellant resigned several months prior to filing his application for certification to contest the particular elective office.

Procedural history: The court found that the Election Commission’s notice of rejection only had evidence that the Chairman signed and decided the opinion, not the inclusion of any other members of the Election Commission. The co-appellant appealed directly to the Supreme Court rather than Election Commission’s remedial process.

Summary: The court determined that the record was devoid of investigation or hearing conducted in accordance with the bar from participating in elections and the appellants had not been heard regarding the matter. Further, there was no evidence that the Board of Commissioners outside of the Chairman were aware of the ruling. On the merits, the appellant argued that he could not have anticipated running two years before and resigned from his position because at the time he did not have political ambitions. Further, the appellant argued that the vice presidency is determined by the presidential candidate, not the vice president himself. The court determined that the word desire in the statute required a more thorough investigation into the facts. The court determined that the violation did not warrant disqualification from contesting the application, but that the Commission should impose a penalty within the Code’s stipulated penalties.

Conclusion: The decision of the National Election Commission was reversed and remanded for a determination of the penalty imposed on the co-appellant Karnwea.

Legal Issue(s)

Candidate Registration
Civil Procedure
EMB Independence

Region: Africa

Country: Liberia

Language of Decision

English

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: Presidential

Date of decision: Jul 20, 2017

Geolocation

Latitude: 6.404914557

Longitude: -10.67993335

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

HARRISON-S.-KARNWEA-AND-LIBERTY-PARTY-V.-NATIONAL-ELECTIONS-COMMISSION-FINAL-JUDGMENT.pdf
English
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Election Judgments - IFES

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Karnwea v. National Elections Commission

Primary Documents

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