Duporte v Freeman

• Jurisdiction: Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Judge: Lewis, C.J.,GORDON, J.A.,LEWIS, J.A.
• Judgment Date: 11 June 1968
• Neutral Citation: KN 1968 CA 1
• Docket Number: No. 2 of 1968
• Court: Court of Appeal (Saint Kitts and Nevis)
• Date: 11 June 1968

The West Indies Associated States in the Court of appeal.

Lewis, C.J.,

Lewis, J.A.

Gordon, J.A.

No. 2 of 1968

Duporte

and

Freeman

Appearances:

F.C. Adams for appellant.

C.F. Henville for respondent.

Election.

Facts: Whether the trail judge ought to have followed sections 86 of the Constitution and Elections Ordinance, cap. 162 and made a determination whether the member of council whose return or election is complained of was void and if so what other person was duly returned or elected or whether the election was void. Finding that the judge ought to have made such a determination.

Lewis, C.J.

1 In this case the appellant presented a petition to the High Court on the 12 ^th January 1968, questioning the return of the respondent as the person duly elected for Ward No. 5 in Nevis, at an election held on the 15 ^th of December 1967. The election purports to have been held under The Local Government Act 1967, No. 20 of 1967. That Act was passed in November 1967 and was assented to on the 8 ^th November 1967, and under one of its provisions was to come into force on a date appointed by proclamation. Learned counsel for the appellant was unable to stay whether the Act has as yet been proclaimed. However, the court will assume for the purposes of this case that the Act is in force.

2 The petition duly came on for trial before the High Court on the 19 ^th of February 1968, when the respondent took the point in limine that it had been presented out of time, and that the petition was not properly before the Court.

3 Under s. 22(2) of the Act:

“The procedure for the presentation, hearing and adjudication of election petition with regard to the election of members to the House of Assembly shall apply mutatis mutandis to election petitions under the Act”.

4 So that sends us to s. 85 of Chapter 162, The Constitution and Elections Ordinance. That section reads as follows:

“Every election petition shall be tried in the same manner as an action in the Supreme Court by a Judge sitting alone. At the conclusion of the trial the Judge shall determine whether the member of the Council whose return or election is complained of or any, and what other person was duly returned and elected, or whether the election was void, and shall certify such determination to the Administrator, and, upon his certificate being given, such determination shall be final; and the return shall be confirmed or altered, or a writ for a...