ON NOVEMBER 22, the High Court will deliver its ruling in the lawsuit filed by a Tobago resident against the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) over its report which led to the creation of three new electoral districts on the island.
Justice Carol Gobin set the date on Monday to deliver her ruling in the challenge by June Jack McKenzie, of Bacolet, Tobago, a former constituency secretary for the late Arthur NR Robinson, a former Tobago East MP.
Gobin has already agreed to hold a rolled-up hearing incorporating the leave application and the substantive judicial review claim and will also hear a preliminary argument by the Attorney General.
McKenzie is represented by attorneys Dinesh Rambally, Kiel Taklalsingh, Stefan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan.
Representing the EBC are Deborah Peake, SC, and Ravi Heffes-Doon. Douglas Mendes, SC, and Ravindra Nanga are representing the Attorney General, who has entered the proceedings as an interested party without objection from Jack-McKenzie.
At Monday’s virtual hearing, Gobin set a strict timeline for the filing of affidavits and submissions after it was pointed out that the election date had been announced as December 6.
In her claim, Jack-McKenzie complained that some of the methodology used by the EBC to determine the new districts was outside the commission’s statutory powers.
She will ask the court to declare the EBC’s consideration of “community fragmentation and ensuring they were not divided” in arriving at the new districts was unlawful and should be voided and for the 2021 EBC Order, proclaimed by the President, which gave effect to the creation of the three additional seats, to be declared unlawful.
Jack-McKenzie wants the court to quash the order and the EBC’s report.
Her lawsuit claims the EBC breached its statutory duties under Section 4 of the Election and Boundaries Commission (Local Government and Tobago House of Assembly) Act, by allegedly using considerations not expressly or impliedly conferred by the legislation.
[caption id="attachment_920842" align="alignnone" width="768"] June Jack McKenzie.[/caption]
Her lawyers contend that when the EBC decided to split two existing districts into four new districts, this was done on a mathematical basis, with the districts with the highest number of electors being selected.
“However, when the intended defendant (the EBC) came to exercise its discretion in relation to the new 15th district, the intended defendant bypasses the largest electoral area for the creation of the new 15th district and instead uses the second largest electoral district for the creation of this 15th district,” her judicial review application said.
“The intended defendant, in its report, states that this was done to avoid 'fragmenting' 'communities' within the Providence/ Mason Hall/Moriah electoral district,” it said, adding that the EBC’s consideration of “community boundaries” was “vague, nebulous and uncertain.
“There is too great a risk of arbitrary application,” the claim said, adding that natural boundaries
