Politician, lawyer and cartoonist's sedition challenge allowed

The Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court today allowed PKR lawmaker N Surendran, cartoonist Zunar, and lawyer Eric Paulsen to pose one question of law to the High Court for it to consider bringing it to the Federal Court with regard to their sedition charges.

Sessions judge Zaman Mohd Noor allowed the question to be posed under Section 30 of the Courts of Judicature Act for reference of constitutional questions by the subordinate court.

Initially, three questions were posed by them but only one was allowed by Zaman.

The question is whether Section 3 (3) of the Sedition Act 1948, as interpreted in the case Public Prosecutor vs Ooi Kee Saik violates Article 5 (1) of the Federal Constitution read with Article 8(1) thereof, having regard to the decision in Public Prosecutor vs Gan Boon Aun?

Surendran, Paulsen and Zunar, whose real name is Zulkiflee SM Anwarul Haque, want the court to hear the constitutionality of Section 3 (3) of the Sedition Act, which stipulates that “intention” is irrelevant.

Surendran, who is also a PKR vice-president, was charged with criticising a Court of Appeal ruling through a news release titled “Fitnah II is flawed, defensive and insupportable”.

Paulsen was charged over a tweet accusing the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) of promoting extremism.

Zunar, on the other hand, was slapped with nine charges related to sedition for tweets on PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy conviction.

All of them were charged under Section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act. -Mkini