Federal Court strikes out Bukit Koman residents' appeal

The residents of Bukit Koman have lost their last chance to challenge via a judicial review of the residents’ demand that the Raub Australian Gold Mining Sdn Bhd conduct a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment.

This follows the Federal Court’s dismissal of their appeal for them to gain leave for the matter to be heard on its merits at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

The five-member bench was led by Court of Appeal president Md Raus Sharif.

Justice Raus, who is the second-most senior judicial officer in the country, said they have deliberated and that their finding was unanimous.

“We find no reason to disturb the decision of the courts below and dismiss the appeal.

“We answer the question in the negative.”

In addition, Justice Raus ordered the residents to pay costs of RM15,000.

The other judges were Federal Court judges Abdull Hamid Embong, Ahmad Ma’arop, Hasan Lah and Zaleha Zahari.

The Bukit Koman residents in Raub had failed to obtain leave from the Kuala Lumpur High Court on June 1, 2009.

On March 21, 2009, Bukit Koman residents led by Wong Kim Hong, Chong Sow Pin, Hue Fui How, and Mustapha Hussin filed their judicial review application at the KL High Court on behalf of the residents, where they named the Department of Environment (DOE) and Raub Goldmining as the respondents. 

This follows the residents’ complaints over their concern on the alleged use of cyanide in extracting gold leftovers, and they were seeking several declarations namely:

• They want the court to declare that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report submitted by the mining company to the DOE in 1996 did not comply with certain requirements of the Environment Quality Act;

• They are also seeking a certiorari order (to quash) the DOE’s approval of the preliminary EIA report;

• They want a DEIA to be ordered on the company;

• A declaration that the developers must obtain a detailed EIA before proceeding with gold-mining works.

• The residents also want the court to order the company to cease its operations until a DEIA is made.

The Court of Appeal had upheld the KL High Court’s decision on Aug 3, 2011.

‘Judicial review bid has ended’

Raub Australian Gold Mining Sdn Bhd (RAGMS) counsel Cecil Abraham said today’s decision meant that the judicial review application has ended.

The residents’ counsel, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, said the apex court has been conservative in their decision.

“You can look at the Kampung Terentang case in Rawang (with Tenaga Nasional Bhd) and also this case,” he said.

The court, he said, is eventually saying that despite having merits as we have produced, if you are out of time in filing the application then the application is dismissed.

“You can look at the amount of work the residents did trying to get the EIA which was produced in 1997 and then hire specialist to study it. There was a lot of time spent and we were late in filing it and they have dismissed it,” said Malik Imtiaz.

This, Malik said, is not a progressive judgment, but despite this we respect the decision.