Losing candidate asks court to review her election petition blaming court staff for failing to upload on time

Delay by the court registry to upload election petitions onto the courts electronic case management system  (IECMS) on time has become the subject of a Supreme Court review application

A female candidate Dianne Unagi Koiam who lost contesting the Moresby Northeast seat in Port Moresby during the 2022 national elections has applied to be granted leave to review.

The national court had earlier dismissed her election petition for being incompetent as it was filed out of time.

Diane Unagi Koiam is among two others, Peter Dominic and Andabanga Nelson Baliawe who are challenging the win by Hon John Kaupa.

Their petitions have been dismissed for being incompetent as they were filed out of time and they have all gone to the Supreme Court asking for leave to review.

Diane Unagi-Koiam's lawyer Gloria Salika has strongly argued that her client has been blamed for the incompetence of the court registry and this is creating issues with all other matters.

Ms Salika told the court her client has fulfilled the constitutional responsibility to file within the required 40 days but the incompetence of the court registry to upload on the electronic case management system has inconvenienced her client.

Justice Derek Hartshorn has asked if the circumstances had any direct conflict with law.

Lawyer Ms Salika said the delay in uploading to the electronic case management system was not in conflict with law but  was creating issues with all other matters.

With her clients case she told the court, referring to an evidence in the review book that her client’s election petition was filed on the 21 September 2022 at 9.30am and at 9.44am it was uploaded on the electronic case management system

 

She argued that for the registry to say it was filed on the 23 September goes against the facts she had referred to regarding her clients filing.

Hon John Kaupa’s lawyer Paul Mawa has asked the court to carefully consider grounds to review if there were injustices, exceptional circumstances and there were arguments of law and fact.

Mawa said there seems to be no apparent error made by the judiciary and the circumstances argued by Diane Unagi Koiam's lawyer may be unusual but not exceptional.

The electoral commission’s lawyer has pretty much leaned towards this defence and briefly said there were no important points of law raised and the security deposit together with filing fees were paid out of time rendering the petition incompetent.