Court dismisses bid to nullify polls results

Judge Ravinthran Paramaguru held that the judicial review action sought by lawyer activist Marcel Jude Joseph had no prima facie case.

KOTA KINABALU: The High Court here has dismissed with cost an application by a defeated candidate in the last month’s general election for a judicial review of Sabah’s electoral roll.

Judge Ravinthran Paramaguru in his decision yesterday held that the judicial review action sought by Marcel Jude Joseph should be dismissed because there was no prima facie case.

He then awarded cost RM5,000 to the respondent, the Elections Commission.

The applicant Joseph, who is a lawyer, represented himself while the commission was represented by Senior Federal Counsel Mohd Rahazlan.

Joseph contested and lost as an independent candidate in the Api Api state constituency.

He was also seeking a refund of the sum of RM8,000 paid by him to the respondent to participate as a candidate in the general election which he lost as he failed to capture the benchmark of 12.5% of the votes cast.

Joseph only managed to polled 44 votes.

The seat was won by PKR’s Christina Liew Chin Jin who polled 5,853 votes wresting the constituency Barisan Nasional’s Dr Yee Moh Chai of Parti Bersatu Sabah (5,058).

Two others also forfeited their deposits – Wong Yit Ming of Sabah Progressive Party (713) and State Reform Party’s Felix Chong Kat Fah (152 votes).

Joseph, who is also an activist, was also claiming damages for negligence by the respondent in issuing the Writ of Election and the Notice of Election without the removal of 60,673 dubious entries, or the disclosure by the respondent of 60,673 dubious entries to him prior to his registration as a candidate in Api Api constituency

Dubious votes

He had on May 2, this year, applied for leave to have the electoral roll in Api-Api, where he stood as an independent candidate, to be cleaned up by removing any dubious voters.

Joseph claimed, among others, the entries include incomplete addresses, similar names appearing more than once and wrong gender.

He also applied for the electoral rolls of the Luyang state constituency and Kota Kinabalu parliamentary seat to be cleaned up by the commission.

His application came after he had read in the newspapers an article on May 1 which quoted the EC chairman as saying that there were 60, 673 dubious entries in the electoral rolls of Sabah.

Joseph had sought, among others, a declaration that the electoral rolls in respect of Api-Api and Luyang state constituencies and Kota Kinabalu parliamentary seat are null and void.