The de­ci­sion of High Court Judge Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er to strike out five elec­tion pe­ti­tions chal­leng­ing the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion's ex­ten­sion of last year's gen­er­al elec­tion by one hour now has the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) squab­bling over who scored a le­gal vic­to­ry.

De­spite its pe­ti­tions be­ing dis­missed, the UNC con­tend­ed that it suc­ceed­ed in its chal­lenge over the il­le­gal­i­ty of the EBC's de­ci­sion, while the PNM al­so claimed it scored over­all vic­to­ry as Dean-Ar­mor­er re­fused to in­val­i­date the elec­tion re­sult, leav­ing its 28-13 mar­gin in the elec­tion un­touched.

Speak­ing to re­porters out­side the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, af­ter the judg­ment was de­liv­ered, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed vic­to­ry.

"To­day I de­clare vic­to­ry on be­half of the pe­ti­tion­ers. It has been a very gru­elling ex­er­cise but I say we cel­e­brate vic­to­ry be­cause we brought these mat­ters for the rule of law and def­i­nite­ly for the democ­ra­cy of T&T, and we have def­i­nite­ly suc­ceed­ed on that limb where the judge has found the EBC act­ed il­le­gal­ly and breached the law," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said as she ad­dressed dozens of vis­i­bly de­ject­ed sup­port­ers who gath­ered out­side the court.

With­out crit­i­cis­ing Dean-Ar­mor­er's judg­ment di­rect­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her par­ty was res­olute in its stance that the elec­tion re­sults should have been in­val­i­dat­ed and would be lodg­ing an ap­peal.

"I am of the firm view now, as when we de­cid­ed to bring these cas­es be­fore the court, that the EBC act­ed il­le­gal­ly and these re­sults are al­so il­le­gal and should be set aside. That is the next step. I am of the firm view that we will even­tu­al­ly be vic­to­ri­ous," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She said the court's rul­ing on the EBC's de­ci­sion vin­di­cat­ed her par­ty, as it had been ac­cused of wast­ing time with a friv­o­lous and vex­a­tious case.

Like Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi de­scribed the judg­ment as a vic­to­ry.

"It is a square vic­to­ry. We are ex­treme­ly pleased and elat­ed that the judge found mer­it in our sub­mis­sions," Al-Rawi said.

Asked if the Gov­ern­ment would con­sid­er amend­ing elec­tion leg­is­la­tion to more clear­ly de­fine the EBC's pow­er and lim­i­ta­tions, Al-Rawi said it would con­sid­er it on­ly af­ter the case is de­cid­ed by the Court of Ap­peal.

Deputy House Speak­er and Tu­na­puna MP Es­mond Ford was al­so present for the judg­ment and said he was pleased by it.

"I am hap­py that the sit­u­a­tion is over but there is still an ap­pel­late process and I trust that the court would con­tin­ue to do its work. The peo­ple have spo­ken in Tu­na­puna. I won my seat by 3,800 votes."