8/26/2020
Jupica vs Nec – Supreme Court of Liberia
petition filed by Justice and Public Consortium Africa also on December 3, 2014, again outside the
period ordered by the Justice in Chambers. Parties before this Court are required to proceed in strict
compliance with the orders of the Court. Lawyers for the Government knew or ought to have
known that the proper thing they should have done was to first file the returns as directed by the
Chambers Justice and within the time designated so as not to be in breach of the orders of the
Chambers Justice. Of course, in respect of the withdrawal and amendment to the petitioner’s
petition, the law provides that, a party respondent be given time to file an amended returns, if that
party so desires. But to say that a party did not file returns to the original returns as directed
because of the receipt of a notice of withdrawal and an amended petition is a position we cannot
accept. Petitions and returns filed before the Chambers of this Court are pleadings, and our law
provides that when a party files a pleading outside of statutory time that pleading will be stricken.
Normally, before the Supreme Court, when a party fails to file brief, the Rules of the Supreme Court
provide that that party will be fined. But in the instant case, this is not a brief; this is returns which
the Chambers Justice specifically ordered the 1st and 2nd respondents to file in a designated
period, but that order was not carried out in time. This Court will not permit party litigants, through
their counsels, to flout its orders with impunity as non-compliance to orders hampers the work of
this Court.
Clearly, the records show that the Government filed its returns to the petitions of the petitioners,
Blamoh Nelson, J. Emmanuel Bowier, Milton Nathaniel Barnes, and John Ballon, Eminent Citizens
and Registered Voters, and the Movement for Progressive Change (MPC) outside the time directed
by the Chambers Justice. The Government was also late in filing returns to the petition filed by the
Justice and Public Interest Consortium Africa (JUPICA). Under the circumstance, and because of the
decision we are taking in this case, and further because we must be even handed in dealing with all
parties, we hereby order the returns filed by the Government stricken as if the Government had
filed no returns in response to the petitions filed before this Court. Coming to the issue of amended
pleadings, we see in the records that the Concerned 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 of the City of Monrovia filed a Petition for Prohibition on November 24, 2014.
That petition, filed on their behalf by Cllr. Cyrenius Cephas, was withdrawn on December 2,
2014and replaced with another petition, intended as an amended petition. It must be noted that
when a party withdraws a petition and files an amended petition, the parties still remain under the
jurisdiction of the Court, and consistent with the practice in this jurisdiction, the original party
litigants cannot be dropped, substituted, or added without leave of court and in the manner
provided for under the Civil Procedure Law. The Civil Procedure Law is very instructive on these
requirements. See
1LCL R, section 5.36(1) which states that, “a party can only be substituted upon orders of the court
based on a motion duly served on all parties or upon orders of the court suasponte. See also Section
5.54(1) which states that additional parties cannot be brought in matters in the Supreme Court.
A careful inspection of the purported amended petition filed by the petitioner shows that of the
original parties to the action, namely, the Concerned Group of Eminent Citizens, the Movement for
Progressive Change (MPC) and the Leaders of Political Parties and Civil Society Organizations
comnetitsolutionsinc.org/toj/jupica-vs-nec-2/
4/27