Federal Court failed to uphold principle of power separation in ruling, says Sarawak group

The Federal Court fails to uphold the principle of separation of powers between the three branches of government – the executive, legislature and the judiciary – when it denies a Sarawak lawmaker and a voter leave to challenge the Election Commission's constituency redelineation exercise, says civil society Rise of Sarawak Effort's (Rose) chair Ann C J Teo. – October 16, 2015.The Federal Court failed to uphold the principle of separation of powers between the three branches of government – the executive, legislature and the judiciary – when it denied a Sarawak lawmaker and a voter leave to challenge the Election Commission's constituency redelineation exercise in the Borneo state, a Sarawak civil society said today.

Rise of Sarawak Effort (Rose) chair Ann C J Teo  said the apex court had abdicated its most important function when it delivered judgment in the case yesterday.

“The Federal Court’s decision not to grant leave to appeal the case on constitutional grounds is reflective of the current poor health of democratic institutions in Malaysia.

“The decision slammed shut whatever democratic space hitherto available that enabled voters and citizens to participate in the democratic process of delineation of the electoral boundaries of our constituencies," Teo said.

She said such participation is an internationally recognised practice, adding that it appeared not to be so in Malaysia,

“How can a voter or a group of 100 voters begin to have a say in the process of how electoral boundaries are re-drawn when the notice published by the EC lacked many details?

“Indeed, the level of information and detail given by EC in the recent 2015 recommendations is a far cry from the level of detail published in its 2005 exercise."

Teo said that in 2005, the EC had employed a computerised geographical system, called the Election Geographical Information System (EGIS), to draw up its proposals.

“We believe the EC has an improved system that could provide far better information and details to the public in its 2015 recommendations, but for reasons of their own, chose to reduce the information to the public."

She said this would only increase public mistrust of the EC.

"EC got what they wanted, a highly malapportioned electoral system not reflective of democracy and the principle of One Vote One value.

“They also designed, presented and got away with a redelineation proposal that makes public participation difficult and onerous.”

Teo warned the EC that should they decide to continue riding roughshod over voters the way that they did in Sarawak, then they could “only expect more objections and court cases filed by informed voters” when redelineating Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia.

PKR's Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How and a voter from Baram, Pauls Baya, challenged the EC's redelineation exercise in a Kuching High Court, which on May 15 ruled in their favour.

The High Court ordered the EC to republish its notice as the court said “it lacked details”.

The Court of Appeal on August 17, however, overturned the High Court's ruling on appeal.

See and Baya then applied to the Federal Court for leave to appeal the Court of Appeal's decision.

The court dismissed their application, saying the case was academic as the court could not interfere with parliamentary proceedings after Senior Federal Counsel Amarjeet Singh told the court that the commission had on Tuesday handed over its report and recommendation to the prime minister.

- TMI