Salika hears Middle Ramu petition case

DEPUTY chief justice Gibbs Salika is expected to make a ruling tomorrow on the election petition for the Middle Ramu electorate.
The petition by former Middle Ramu MP Ben Semri alleged errors and omissions by the Electoral Commission. The trial started yesterday in the National Court.
The petition named returning officer Adolf Duangha as first respondent, the Electoral Commission as second respondent and MP Tommy Tomscoll as third respondent.
Electoral Commission lawyer Andrew Kongri submitted that allegations contained in the petition be struck out based on the petitioner’s failure to give specifics and whether those allegations would have affected the integrity of the final results.
Tomscoll’s lawyer Benny Meten also argued that most of the allegations were against other persons and not Tomscoll and that his client had won by a huge margin of 11,925 votes, a difference of 7,021 from Semri, who polled only
4,904 votes.
Meten said if the allegations had mentioned particulars of errors, omissions and illegal or irregular practices as laid out in the petition, then that would help the court to decide but as such it didn’t and also asked the court for the petition to be struck out.