Legal battle for St Mary’s South seat to come before court next week

SOURCE: The Daily Observer

Legal action filed in the High Court against the United Progressive Party’s (UPP) Kelvin “Shugy” Simon – who won the St Mary’s South seat by almost 200 votes – will be heard on February 9.

The petition challenges the legitimacy of Simon’s nomination to run as a candidate in the January 18 election.

Yesterday a preliminary hearing took place to set the order of next week’s proceedings. Simon resigned from his civil service position as a guidance counsellor within the Ministry of Education a fortnight before the election but a week after being officially nominated to run as a candidate for the UPP.

The ABLP claims he should have quit before being nominated. The respondents— Simon and his legal representatives—have until February 3 to submit their arguments before the High Court.

The judge added that the petitioners will be expected to file their response on February 6 with skeleton arguments on both applications expected to be filed on February 8.

Attorney Hugh Marshall Jr filed the petition asking the court to make a declaration that Simon’s nomination contravened both the Constitution of Antigua and Barbuda and the Civil Service Act.

In his petition, it was claimed that at the time of Simon’s nomination, he was not qualified to participate in the elections as he had not resigned from the Public Service Commission (PSC).

It also alleged that insufficient time was given to the PSC to consider such a resignation ahead of the general election.