‘Election cases should go to regular courts’

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 28:

A legal expert says electoral cases should be brought under the purview of regular courts and not the Constitutional Court as is the case now. Speaking to the Arab Times on Sunday, Labeed Abdal added that in many countries including France, Belgium, Egypt etc the Constitutional Court is tasked with rescinding unconstitutional laws. “It is not practical to refer a case such as vote recount to the Constitutional Court since there is tangible evidence available and as such the regular courts can handle the matter with facility.” “Under the regular court system, a candidate will get an opportunity to appeal his case unlike the present system wherein there is no provision in the law for an appeal. As a Constitutional expert, I had suggested in the past that in order to make the vote count process more efficient and transparent, the whole process needs to be overhauled.”
Replying to a question on to the establishment of the Election Commission recommended by some parliamentarians, he stressed that he does not sense the need for an Election Commission and that he has full faith in the judicial system of the country. Under the current system, he said, the Constitution does not have any provision for the Election Commission and there is a need for issuing a new law in order to adopt the system. Abdal went on to explain that present system also is as good as an election commission wherein the process involves judges and officials from the ministry of interior. Abdal observed that the Constitutional Court will accept petitions for vote recount only after thoroughly reviewing them.
Citing an example, Abdal added that a total of 33 candidates had filed a petition before the Constitutional Court seeking a recount and that only 2 cases were approved by the court. Both the candidates who sought a recount were declared winners by around 500-600 votes each. Abdal represented the Parliament Speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi in the Constitutional Court. Abdal added that the authorities should also speed up the vote recount process, thereby issuing the verdict in the shortest time possible. “This will enable to avoid a lot of confusion as under the present system it takes about 3 to 4 months to reach a logical conclusion for a case. I think this can be brought down to 2 to 3 weeks.” Replying to a question whether the judges who were involved in the counting of votes at election booths can be sued by the two parliamentarians, he replied in the negative and was quick to add: “they are humans after all.”

By Francis A. Clifford Cardozo
Arab Times Staff

http://www.arabtimesonline.com/kuwaitnews/pagesdetails.asp?nid=22784&ccid=9