“Boots” Martinez Files High Court Claim Against E&B Over Recall Petition  

Former Port Loyola Area Representative Anthony “Boots” Martinez has officially filed a High Court claim against the Elections and Boundaries Department. Earlier in May, Martinez told the media that the department refused his request to have the one hundred and eighty-eight rejected names on his Gilroy Usher recall petition further verified, based on advice from the attorney general. As a result, Martinez indicated that he would be filing a claim against the department over the refusal. Well, today we met Martinez outside the courthouse. He was there to finalize his application submission. Here is what he told us.

 

Anthony “Boots” Martinez, Former Area Rep., Port Loyola

“I am here to deal with the registry of the supreme court to see the processes of the application for judicial review for the recall petition. The hundred and eighty-eight mismatched signatures of which I personally witnessed a hundred and seventy-two of the people signed and got back one hundred and fifty-eight declarations of the people saying they did sign the petition. So that is the only bone of contention in my view. They say, in my view, I believe that justice not only needs to be done but seems to be done. How you wah verify petition, in my view the law talks about duly verifying a petition and it falls in the chief elections officer hands and their team because they have the capability. They are the people who go, and check people’s addresses and they know there is nothing in the law that says there is one stop way of verifying. The people have phone numbers, an address you cannot even call and whatever the case may be. I have a fundamental problem with it. That cannot be the be it and end it all for the elections and boundaries because the court must have remedy to them kind of thing deh.”

 

Marion Ali

“Is there a timeline you are looking at?”

 

Anthony “Boots” Martinez

“We are looking to it as quick as we could, and we hope to get through it by November of this year because the law speaks to eighteen months after you can’t launch a petition eighteen months after the person is elected and one months before the next election is due.”