WINDHOEK – High Court Judge Kobus Muller would tomorrow – 26 November – deliver the judgement in the urgent High Court application to postpone the 2014 Presidential and National Assembly elections. Judge Muller made the announcement after a whole day of hearing of arguments from lay-litigant August Maletzky, who is also the first applicant, along with the African Labour and Human Rights Centre of which he is its Director, the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), and the President of the Workers Revolutionary Party Hewat Beukes.
Maletzky, RDP and Beukes launched an urgent application in the High Court on Monday, calling for the postponement of the general elections to February 2015.
The RDP and the three other litigants claimed that it is unconstitutional to use Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for elections without a paper trail.
Windhoek lawyer Sisa Namandje, who represented the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) and the Namibian Government as the first and second respondents respectively, said the application should be annulled because not all respondents were served with summonses to appear in court on Tuesday, hence their absence from court.
He however said the court challenge is a special matter because of the upcoming Presidential and National Assembly elections on 28 November 2014.
“We cannot be held hostage because a careless litigant came to court with their papers in shambles,” he said.
Namandje also added that the court could be in a dilemma due to an uncertainty on whether or not to postpone the elections.