Political Leader of the opposition People's Action Movement, Mr. Lindsay Grant, has again failed in his bid to upset the wishes of the electorate of Constituency # 4, who re-elected the Hon. Rupert Herbert, in the 2004 General Election.
Eastern Caribbean High Court Judge, His Lordship Mr. Justice Francis Belle in a one-hour verbal judgement on Wednesday morning, dismissed the petition of Mr. Grant, who filed the petition challenging the results of October 2004 poll.
"We are happy that the judgement came down in the Lindsay Grant matter. We are also extremely happy that the petition was in fact dismissed. We recall that it is almost two years that we have been fighting this petition in the Court and we have always maintained that there was really and truly no substance to them," said Dominica-born Senior Counsel, Mr. Anthony Astaphan, one of the representatives of the three St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party candidates in the three petitions brought by the three defeated PAM candidates.
"We are looking forward to getting the full written judgement of the learned judge to read it in full," said Astaphan, who said he has been in touch by telephone with Mr. Sylvester Anthony, who represented Mr. Herbert in the matter and who was also awaiting the full written judgement before formally commenting.
Mr. Astaphan said the judge's ruling is a vindication of the process. "It is an absolute vindication of the rule of law, of the electoral process," said Astaphan by telephone from Dominica.
The dismissal of the Grant petition is the second by the High Court judge which challenged the outcome of the results in three of the eight constituencies on St. Kitts.
On May 30th this year, Justice Belle dismissed the petition brought by opposition People's Action Movement (PAM) candidate, Mr. Glenroy Blanchette after his lawyer has informed the Court that his client was withdrawing the petition challenging the re-election of the four-term East Basseterre parliamentarian, Dr. the Hon. Earl Asim Martin.
