Court allows EC’s appeal to set aside Selangor’s injunction

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has reversed the decision of the High Court that allowed the Selangor government to stop the Election Commission (EC) from presenting the delineation report to the prime minister.

“The appeal (by the EC) is allowed and we set aside the High Court ruling,” said Justice Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid, who led a three-man bench.

However, the bench also consisting of justices Ahmadi Asnawi and Suraya Othman did not offer any grounds why the EC’s appeal was allowed.

The bench had also earlier refused an application to disqualify Umi Kalthum from hearing the appeal on grounds that she could be biased for having heard similar cases before.

Government lawyer Amarjeet Singh in his submission, said the EC could not conduct the second local inquiries in other other states in the peninsular due to the injunction given to Selangor.

“They are prevented from doing their constitutional function,” he said.

Lawyer Cyrus Das, appearing for the Selangor government, said the injunction was sought to prevent the EC from submitting its delineation exercise report to the prime minister.

“Once, the prime minister tables the report in Parliament, the court could not give an injunction to the state,” he said.

Ambiga Sreenivasan said Selangor was cautious due to a previous Court of Appeal ruling involving Sarawak where it was ruled that the court could not interfere into the affair of the legislature once the prime minsiter had submitted the EC’s report to Parliament.

On July 5, Justice Azizul Azmi Adnan allowed the state’s injunction on the grounds that the EC had not disagreed with the state’s interpretation of Section 8 in the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution.

That section states that the EC shall submit its report on the redelineation exercise to the prime minister after it has completed the inquiries for all 11 states in the peninsula, including Selangor.

During the hearing senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, for the EC, told the court that the redelineation report would not be final unless the redelineation exercise in Selangor is completed.

On Oct 9 last year, Selangot filed a legal challenge seeking to nullify the EC’s notice of delineation, claiming it violated the constitution in drawing up new electoral boundaries.

In April, the Selangor government filed the injunction application to stop the EC from conducting the second inquiry on a delineation exercise in the peninsula until its legal challenge is decided by the court.

In an immediate response, Ambiga said she would have to obtain instruction from the Selangor government as to the next course of action.

“What is more important now is to await for the judicial review application decision by justice Azmi on Dec 7,” she said.

The state is seeking a declaration that the proposed redelineation is unconstitutional and inconsistent with Clauses 2(c) and 2(d) of Article 113(2) of the 13th Schedule of the constitution.

It also sought a declaration that the EC’s failure to use the latest electoral roll in the redelineation was unconstitutional.

The state government also wanted the EC to correct and update the addresses of 36,272 voters, whose addresses had gone missing from the electoral roll.

It filed the application on the grounds that the EC had acted unconstitutionally, unreasonably and irrationally against Article 113(2) of the constitution. -FMT