A rare sitting of the Election Court has agreed to withdraw a petition for a council election to be declared void after receiving ‘conclusive evidence’ that the petitioner handed packets of dates to potential voters.
In Muhammed Afzal v Ayoub Khan & Ors, His Honour Judge Richard Foster, sitting as election commissioner, was ruling on a petition by Labour candidate Muhammed Afzal to overturn the result of a local election in Birmingham in May 2022. Afzal had argued that the two successful Liberal Democrat candidates had falsely accused him of bribing voters with party-branded packets of dates. The judge observed that the election took place during Ramadan, ‘and that the consumption of dates is a traditional way in which Muslims end their fast at sundown’.
However 10 days before the trial date, after seeing evidence served by the opposition, Afzal sought the court’s permission to withdraw his petition. The evidence included doorbell video footage of Afzal and his supporters giving electors packets of dates with Labour Party stickers on them. Ruling on the application, Foster noted that counsel for Afzal had submitted that it would be ‘impracticable’ to continue with the petition. ‘His client accepts, as he must, his liability to pay costs,’ the judge continued.
However the judge said that one of the respondents opposed the application to withdraw ‘on the grounds that the public interest demands a full and thorough investigation by me, utilising my inquisitorial role’.
Foster agreed that an election court ‘has a duty where appropriate exercising its inquisitorial role to investigate any allegations of corrupt or illegal practice’. However it must also ‘be mindful of the court’s resources in accordance with the overriding objectives of the Civil Procedure Rules’. He thus granted the petition.
The judgment would have the effect of vindicating the respondents, the judge said. ‘The petitioner had the audacity to issue these proceedings in the knowledge that the allegations quite properly made by the respondents in the course of the election campaign were truthful. He persisted with the petition and served evidence from himself and others which was and he must have known to be false.’
Such conduct should properly be met with indemnity costs, the judge found. Ordering a detailed assessment, he awarded the respondents interim costs of £10,000 each to be paid within 28 days. The judgment would also be referred to the director of public prosecutions.