that when the Government carried out this assessment and enumeration that they,
the Applicants herein were not among those enumerated; also, they have not said
what prevented them from participating or from benefitting.
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9.3. Lest we forget, as has been stated earlier in this RULING, we do not comment
on the question of whether or not the fundamental human rights of the Applicants
were violated and if so by whom. Our comments in this RULING only deal with
the preliminary questions of the propriety of the withdrawal or discontinuance of
this suit by the Plaintiffs after issues had been joined.
9.4. One final comment to make is that during oral argument before this BENCH,
Counsel for the Plaintiffs contended that costs should not be awarded to the
Defendants because they did not specifically pray for costs in their pleadings.
Counsel cited the Rule of this Court to support that argument.
9.5. We hereby hold that yes, the Rules do provide that the party(ies) must request
for cost to be awarded cost, but that requirement is in contemplation of the case
being disposed of in the ordinary course of things, that is, the case going through to
its logical conclusion. We do not believe that the framers of the Rule intended that
a party can wait until pleadings have rested, issues joined, and then unilaterally
withdraw or discontinue his case with no regard to the situation of the other
party(ies).
9.6. The Court will not lend itself to such practices. If the Plaintiffs had allowed
the case to go to its logical ending in a judicial determination on the merits of the
case or even on the legal issues as raised in the respective Preliminary Objections,
then a conclusive decision would terminate the case one way or the other.
Therefore, the argument of the Plaintiffs counsel is unreasonable, unjust, unfair,
and hence untenable, and accordingly overruled.
10. DECISION
The Court, adjudicating in a public sitting, after hearing both parties, in last resort,
after deliberating in accordance with the law;
As to Motions for Extension of Time
10.1. Declares that all the Motions for Extension of Time filed by all the parties be
granted and the same are hereby granted.