The Board of Commissioners of the National Elections Commission, (NEC) has ordered its Certification Committee, under the Political Affairs Section, to officially arrange and workout all modalities for the certification Ceremony of the winners of the 8 December 2020 Special Senatorial Elections in Lofa and Maryland Counties respectively.
The Board of Commissioners of NEC took the decision yesterday following the reading of the mandate of the Supreme Court of Liberia. The mandate of the Supreme Court among other things confirmed the ruling of the Board of Commissioners declaring Mr. J. Browne Samukai as winner of the 8 December 2020 Special Senatorial Elections in Lofa County.
The mandate of the Supreme Court signed by its Clerk Sam Momolu also instructed the Elections Commission to resume jurisdiction of the Lofa County appeal case of elections irregularities. The case grew out of the action of elections irregularities filed by Ahmed and James as first complainants and Kesselly and Peter as Second Complainants all of Lofa County. But the Highest Court said they had no standings to challenge the results as they were not Political Parties and Candidates.
When the Maryland Case was called for Hearing yesterday on a Motion to dismiss an appeal, lawyers representing Senator H. Dan Marias led by Cllr. Wilfred Sayer after representations by both the Complainant and Respondent, first made a submission and informed the Administrative Court that they interposed no objection to the motion to dismiss the appeal expressed no interest to continue the case filed against Hon. James Biney winner of the 8 December 2020 Special Senatorial Elections in Maryland County.
The Chairperson of the Board, Davidetta Browne Lansanah said having resumed jurisdiction of the matter, the Certification Committee, led by the Political Affairs Office is instructed to work out all modalities of the time and date for certification of J. Browne Samukai as Senator of Lofa County and suspended the matter.
The Chairperson of the BOC Davidetta Browne Lansanah in the ruling said after the complainant listened to the soundness of the motion to dismiss and interposes no objection to the motion to dismiss, the Administrative Court granted the motion to dismiss as pray for by the Complainant. The Chairperson then suspended the Lofa and Maryland counties elections dispute cases as a matter of law, a release from NEC issued yesterday said.