THE petition against the results of the 2018 General Election had to be served personally on the 28 named respondents, the Court of Disputed Returns was told yesterday.
Lawyer Devanesh Sharma, representing Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the Attorney-General and Registered Officer of the FjjiFirst party, was responding to an application by Filimoni Vosarogo of Mamlakah Lawyers, the solicitor for the petitioners, for an order allowing the petition to be served on Mr Sayed-Khaiyum as the registered officer of the FijiFirst party on behalf of the 27 members of the party who are named as respondents.
The application was made on the basis that it was impracticable to serve all the respondents individually given that the Constitution requires the court to hear and give its decision on the petition within 21 days of when it was filed on Monday.
Mr Sharma said once the petitioners made a voluntarily choice by joining 27 members of the FijiFirst party, they should have known from the outset that if they were going to take that approach then they are bound to serve them personally as well.
Mr Sharma said the respondents would then decide on the manner in which they wanted to defend the matter.
“They might instruct multiple counsels, they may not wish to defend the matter, but it’s not a choice that this court can make at this particular juncture,” Mr Sharma said.
He said there was no evidence before the court that these persons couldn’t be served locally or that their whereabouts were unknown, adding the question was what efforts were made by the petitioners to serve the respondents.
“There is no evidence before the court that any effort has been made to serve the respondents individually and evidence to show why substituted service can be allowed in the manner sought in the summons of directions,” Mr Sharma said.
Mr Vosarogo said their attempts to serve the petition to the second respondent, who was the FijiFirst party general secretary, failed.
So far Mr Vosarogo said they only managed to serve the petition to the Supervisor of Elections.
However, Mr Sharma told the court the party’s general secretary Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum wasn’t personally served, but was sent the petition by the chief registrar as required by the Electoral Act.
Mr Vosarogo said the petition was filed on Monday with affidavits sworn by SODELPA leader Sitiveni Rabuka and NFP leader Professor Biman Prasad including the summons of directions along with the memorandum of the court.
Mr Vosarogo made an application if the party’s general secretary could be served the petition on behalf of the 27 respondents as he was the appropriate person since he had signed all the respondents’ nomination papers.
The respondents, he said, were 26 candidates of the general elections who are now members of Parliament, while the 29th respondent was an unsuccessful candidate, but there were allegations in the petition related to him. The matter was called before Madam Justice Anjala Wati and Justice Kamal Kumar.
