Follow us on:

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube

Archive -Seychelles

Linyon Demokratik Seselwa rejects judgement of Constitutional Court |04 June 2016

Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS) has said it completely rejects the judgement of the Constitutional Court delivered on May 31, 2016, on the petition challenging the results of the December 2015 presidential election.

“LDS considers the decisions of the Court to be unreasonable and politically biased in favour of the incumbent President and Party and therefore not a fair rendering of justice in the critical issue of the conduct of elections in our country,” LDS says in a communiqué.

The communiqué adds that the Court has accepted that there were multiple illegal practices in the electoral process …. but nevertheless declared that these illegal practices could not be attributed to the Parti Lepep presidential candidate, James Michel, because it had not been proven that the persons involved in these illegal practices had acted as Mr Michel’s agents.

“The Court has shown itself blind to the reality and has been unreasonable to expect that documentary evidence that these persons acted as agents of the candidate could be shown,” says the LDS communique.

“The Court has also found that there were multiple infractions of the law as well as of procedures laid down in the guidelines issued by the Electoral Commission, for which the main electoral officials, Hendrick Gappy, chairman of the Electoral Commission, and Charles Morin, Chief Electoral Officer, must bear the responsibility. Yet the Court has dismissed these infractions as being of no consequence because they would not have affected the declared results of the elections, without ever examining what the effect of the results could have been,” notes the communiqué.

“On the other hand, the Court has found that the petitioner in this case, presidential candidate of the Seychelles National Party Wavel Ramkalawan, was guilty of illegal practice and is issuing a report to that effect to the Electoral Commission which, it declares, will lead to Mr Ramkalawan being struck off the Electoral Register. It is totally incomprehensible why the Court would take this action when there has not been any petition accusing Mr Ramkalawan of illegal practice in the first place and without ever notifying him that he was under examination for such an offence or affording him the possibility of defending himself against such an accusation,” adds the communiqué.

LDS says it considers that the decisions of the Court have condoned illegal practices and have therefore not served the interest of democracy in our country.

 

 

 

» Back to Archive