THE expected start to the election petition brought by the People National Party’s Phyllis Mitchell to unseat Government Parliamentarian Gregory Mair from the North East St Catherine seat in the House of Representatives was postponed until Thursday.

The postponement was granted after attorneys for both Mitchell and Mair agreed to put their submissions in writing in order to speed up the trial, which had originally been set to run for five days in the Supreme Court.

Another agreement by the parties is that no witnesses will be called to testify in the matter.

Mitchell, after losing the constituency to Mair in the September 3, 2007 general elections, filed the petition charging that her opponent was not properly nominated due to his acquiring nationality status with Venezuela.

As a result, Mitchell is contending that Mair is not qualified to hold a seat in Parliament, as outlined in the Jamaican Constitution.

The case followed the closely-watched election petition brought by Abe Dabdoub in which he unseated Daryl Vaz as MP for the West Portland Constituency in the Supreme Court. A by election was ordered in which Vaz defeated the PNP’s new candidate Kenneth Rowe to reclaim the seat.

Also yesterday, the election petition brought by the PNP’s Richard Azan in his bid to unseat Michael Stern from the North West Clarendon Constituency was set for July 27. The matter will run for four days. An order was also made by the court for Stern to make certain disclosures to Azan’s legal team within the next seven days.

Azan too is contending that Stern is not qualified to sit in Gordon House, because of his alleged United

States citizenship.