Three youths not allowed to commence legal bid to vote in Sarawak elections

 

SARAWAK POLLS | Three Sarawakian youths aged between 18 and 19 were denied court leave to proceed with legal action to allow them to vote in the upcoming 12th state election.

The Kuching High Court this afternoon disallowed the trio’s judicial review leave application against the Registrar of Electors for Sarawak and the Election Commission (EC).

During the proceedings, judicial commissioner Alexander Siew How Wai dismissed the judicial review leave bid by the three applicants - Avril Clarice Chin Ning, 18, and Ivan Alexander Ong and Addam Johanson Jeremy Shayne, both 19.

Following today’s decision, the Kuching High Court will not be setting any date to hear submissions from parties over the merits of the judicial review proper.

On Thursday last week, the Borneo Post reported the trio having filed the judicial review to allow them to vote in the upcoming Dec 18 Sarawak polls, as their names were not in the Electoral Roll Notice.

The applicants are seeking a declaration that they are entitled to vote in any election held after Dec 15.

They contended that their names should have been in the Electoral Roll Notice because Undi 18 (the lowering of voting age nationwide from 21 to 18) should come into effect for Sarawak on Dec 15. The trio claimed that at the moment their names are not in the said Notice.

They claimed that Section 3 of the Constitution (Amendment) Act 2019, which reduced the minimum voting age from 21 to 18, comes into effect on Dec 15, and that in effect it should provide automatic registration of voters once they are 18 years old.

Earlier on Sept 3, the same court had allowed a separate legal challenge for the federal government to implement the constitutional lowering of the voting age nationwide by the end of this year.

Then on Oct 28 at the Dewan Rakyat, de facto law minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said that 18-year-olds are allowed to vote in the Sarawak elections if it is held after Dec 31 this year.

Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob was reported saying that the government would begin the lowering of the voting age nationwide from Jan 1 next year.

When contacted after proceedings this afternoon, the youth trio’s counsel Simon Siah confirmed that the Kuching High Court dismissed the judicial review leave application. 

“It was dismissed with no order as to costs. 

“(Alexander ruled that) The test for granting leave is that there should be an arguable case.

“After perusing the cause papers and hearing from the SFC (senior federal counsel team) for the state, the court ruled that the applicants have failed to meet the test (for judicial review leave to be granted in the matter),” the lawyer said.

Simon said the court ruled that automatic right to vote does not mean instantaneous and that per the election regulations, there are process that still needs to be followed.

The lawyer said the court noted among others that under the new system, the Electoral Roll will be updated every month compared to the old system which was every three months.

 On whether the trio would appeal, Simon said at the moment there is no instruction to appeal, as even if an appeal is filed to the Court of Appeal, the Dec 18 Sarawak polls would have been already over by then, rendering any such appeal nugatory (pointless).

Through the judicial review, the trio was seeking among other reliefs, declarations that as citizens, they are entitled to vote in any polls held after Dec 15 this year; to set aside the Electoral Roll Notice (which was gazetted in the second quarter of this year); and a direction or order to compel the two respondents to take urgent and immediate steps to ensure the trio and other similar citizens are included in the supplementary electoral roll for the upcoming state polls. - Mkini