Bonnie Harpe was set to appear in Yukon Supreme Court this afternoon to try to stop the Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n Council from holding new elections before the court rules on her case.

Documents ask the court to prevent the Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n Council 'from holding elections for the position of Chief or Deputy Chief until such time as the Court has ruled on the judicial review.'

This motion was added to Harpe's original claim on Wednesday.

The move to block the council from calling elections comes about as a result of changes it made to the rules for elections.

One change involves limiting the eligibility of candidates who can run for the positions of chief and deputy chief.

The new rule says that any person with an outstanding legal action against the Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n Council cannot run for chief or deputy chief for five consecutive years.

'A citizen who is elected Chief or Deputy-Chief and is found subsequently to have any outstanding legal action against the Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n Council . . . shall not be eligible as a candidate for the office of either Chief or Deputy-Chief for five consecutive years,' states the Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n Elections Act.

This would mean that Harpe could not run as a candidate for the next five years, as a result of the suit she has brought forward regarding the legality of the last election.

'My client is being precluded from participating in the election for five years because of the fact that she is in court with action for judicial review,' said Harpe's lawyer, Andre Roothman.

'It's absurd. She's attacking something that we say the first nation has done wrong according to the constitution.'

This change, among others, was made to the Election Rules which officially became the Elections Act on July 27, according to a signed copy of the act filed in court.

This matter preventing Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n from holding an election while the case is before the courts was to be brought to the Supreme Court this afternoon, Roothman said in an interview today.

The defendants, the Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n Council and current acting Chief Ruth Massie, are seeking to adjourn the matter because they have not had enough time to prepare for court, said Roothman.

However, the matter is time-sensitive, according to Roothman, as an election could be called before the end of August.

The bulk of the case dates back to the 2004 election for Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n chief. Three candidates ran for the position, including Massie, Harpe and Sam Broeren.

Harpe lost the election to Massie by two votes.

Broeren, who was 10 votes behind Harpe, told her a short time after the election that he has a criminal record, court documents say.

The Election Rules for the April 2004 election state that candidates running for chief and deputy chief cannot have a criminal record.

'A candidate for the election of Chief or Deputy Chief must declare . . . that he/she does not have a criminal record for an indictable offence or an offence related to theft, fraud or false pretenses,' says Harpe's claim.

As a consequence, Harpe filed an appeal with the Ta'an Kw‰ch'‰n Judicial Council the following month, in May.

A year later, in May 2005, the judicial council released a report saying Broeren had been convicted of possessing stolen property in 1966, which meant there had been a violation of rules in the chief elections.

'The Report stated that, considering the number of votes received by Sam Broeren and the margin of the victory in the election, the violation may have had a material effect on the results of the election,' the suit says.

This means Harpe could have won.

The judicial council called for a new election, as those held in 2004 were void.

An election has not yet been held but is scheduled to take place before the end of October.

After the release of the judicial council's report, the elders' council appointed Massie acting chief and began a review process of the Elections Rules, which included the clause that would make Harpe ineligible to run for five years, Roothman said.

Harpe's suit, however, says that all of the decisions made by the council and Massie are illegal.

The legislation they have passed is 'of no legal effect' because they lacked a minimum number of decision-makers. In other words, they lacked the quorum set out in their constitution, the suit argues.

The number of members was too low because the position of chief was not legitimately filled as of the judicial council's ruling in May 2005, and because the deputy chief had stepped down almost a year earlier, in June 2004.

Roothman said it was a key error that byelections were not held at the time, when former deputy chief Jerry Geddes resigned.

As a result, Harpe is asking the court to declare the 2004 election void and to remove Massie as acting chief.

She is also asking the court to declare that decisions made since May after the judicial council ruled the elections void illegal and to prevent council from making decisions until elections for chief and deputy chief are held.

This would include the recently-enacted Election Act.

Harpe also wants the council's bank accounts frozen.

Last month, members of Kwanlin Dun First Nation were also in court over election results.

The Yukon Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs had to exhaust options to resolve the dispute within the band before the court could rule on the matter.

Roothman said Harpe has already sought to resolve the claim internally by appealing to the judicial council.

'We've done it all,' he said.