8/26/2020 Jupica vs Nec – Supreme Court of Liberia however, that the name “S. Ciapha Gbollie” (in handwriting) was written below the name of Cllr. J. Laveli Supuwood as another deponent. This seems to be an afterthought, that is, it appears that on remembering that a lawyer is not permitted by law to sign the affidavit in a prohibition matter, the name of S. Ciapha Gbollie” was forced on the instrument. We say forced because space was not provided for a second deponent, so one can clearly see that an imprecision was made, as the name, S. Ciapha Gbollie and title Vice Chairman-Adm/NDC/deponent could hardly fit in the space. There is another affidavit attached to the same petition also signed by Cllr. J. Laveli Supuwood over his name which was typewritten. And again, the name S. Ciapha Gbollie appeared on this affidavit in handwriting with the position Vice Chairman-Adm/NDC/Deponent.    This second affidavit, unlike the first affidavit quoted above, was never signed by a Justice of the Peace. We do not know of any law that requires two affidavits to verify one pleading. Moreover, the law requires that pleadings in a prohibition matter be verified by the parties themselves. 1 LCL Rev. Civil Procedure Law, section 9.4 (2) (b); the case: Raymond International v. Dennis, 25 LLR 131, (1976).And where a pleading is not properly verified, that pleading will be stricken. 1 LCL Rev. Civil Procedure Law, section 9.4(5) In a recent case, the National Vision Party et al. versus National Elections Commission, decided March, 2014, this Court held that “our statute does not treat a failure to verify or improper verification as harmless error. In that case, also involving political parties, as in the case before us, a lawyer improperly verified a pleading by signing as counsel for the respondent when he was actually the counsel for the petitioner. That lawyer was Cllr. J. Laveli Supuwood. We see, also, that Counselor Supuwood filed three different petitions, one after the other, naming National Democratic Coalition as petitioner. Firstly, all of the said petitions were verified by Counselor Supuwood, rather than the parties themselves as required by law. And secondly, there is no showing that the procedure provided by statute was followed; rather, the records show that the first petition by NDC was filed on November 21, 2014, and a second petition was filed on November 26, 2014, without paying the accrued costs and withdrawing the first petition filed on November 21, 2014.The records further show that a third petition denominated as amended petition was filed on December 5, 2014, and again without following the procedure laid down by law. In other words, the first petition was not withdrawn and an amended petition filed as required. Section 9.10 of 1LCL Rev., Civil Procedure Law provides: 1. “Amendment to pleading permitted. At any time before trial any party may, in so far as it does not unreasonably delay trial, once amend any pleading made by him by: 1. a. Withdrawing it and any subsequent pleading made by him; 2. b. Paying all costs incurred by the opposing party in filing and serving pleadings subsequent to the withdrawn pleading; and 3. c. Substituting an amended pleading.” As seen from the quoted statute, a party can only once withdraw and amend. But this was not the case with the NDC; it kept filing, through its counsel, one petition after the other, in complete comnetitsolutionsinc.org/toj/jupica-vs-nec-2/ 6/27