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Jupica vs Nec – Supreme Court of Liberia
named two Branches of Government by setting the date of the elections. They requested the
Justice in Chambers to halt NEC from conducting the ensuing special senatorial elections.
The central contentions in all of the petitions are: a) that the Joint Resolution passed by the
Legislature setting the date for the special senatorial elections is unconstitutional and illegal; b) that
the decision to conduct the special senatorial elections while the ebola virus is still present in Liberia
is improper; and c) that NEC does not have a voters roll as required by the elections law. The
petitioners have therefore requested this Court to halt the conduct of the ensuing special senatorial
elections.
Our Colleague, Mr. Justice Philip A.Z. Banks, III, presiding in Chambers, before whom the petitions
were filed ordered the Clerk of the Supreme Court to issue the alternative writ of prohibition prayed
for and have the respondents file their returns “on or before the 2nd day of December, A.D. 2014.”
And because of the many constitutional issues raised, the Justice further ordered the Clerk to
forward the petitions and the returns thereto to this Court sitting en banc for hearing and
determination. Meanwhile, all the parties withdrew and amended their petitions filed before the
Chambers Justice. We will return to the issue of withdrawing and filing amended petitions later in
this opinion. But for now, let us see whether the instruction of the Justice in Chambers directing
that the petitioners file their returns on or before December 2, 2014 was carried out.
According to the records before us, NEC filed its returns in keeping with the instructions of the
Justice; that is to say, NEC filed its returns with the Clerk of this Court on December 2, 2014. But the
records show that the Government of the Republic of Liberia did not file its returns as in keeping
with the Justice’s instruction; the Government filed returns on December 3, 2014 at 3:15 p.m. The
Government claims that on December 2, 2014, at about 6:30 pm, while finalizing its returns to the
petition, it received a notice of withdrawal and an amended petition filed by Blamoh Nelson, J.
Emmanuel Bowier, Milton Nathaniel Barnes, Eminent Citizens and Registered Voters and John
Ballon, Registered Voter and Chairman of the Movement for Progressive Change. This seems to be
the excuse by the Government for not filing its returns as directed by the Chambers Justice. In other
words, the Government seems to suggest that because it had to file responsive pleadings to the
amended petition, it did not file its returns to the original petition filed by the Concern Group of
Eminent Citizens, the Movement for Progressive Change, (MPC) and leaders of Political Parties and
Civil Society Organizations (CGEC) by and thru their spokespersons, Blamoh Nelson, J. Emmanuel
Bowier, John Ballon and Milton Nathaniel Barnes on December 2, 2014, as directed by the
Chambers Justice.
We do not agree with this contention of the Government attempting to justify the late filing of its
returns to the original petition. We see in the records that on December 3, 2014, at the time of filing
its amended returns, the Government also filed returns to the original petition. Now, we wonder
what was the essence in filing the returns to the original petition on December 3, 2014, when it
was not filed on December 2, 2014, the due date? By December 3, 2014, it was no longer
necessary for the Government to file returns to the original petition because by that time, what was
before the Court was an amended petition. So, if the returns was ready, as the Government wants
us to believe, but was not filed on December 2, 2014, as ordered by the Chambers Justice, then
there was no useful purpose of filing it on December 3, 2014, or at any other time, since the said
returns had become time barred. The records show, also, that the Government filed returns to the
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