Court fixes Sept 14 to hear amendments by 4 Penang reps

 

The Penang High Court was told that the four assemblymen need time to submit amendments to their originating summons.

GEORGE TOWN: The Penang High Court has fixed Sept 14 to hear amendments in the case relating to four state assemblymen who filed for an injunction against the Penang state assembly on a motion to vacate their seats.

Judicial Commissioner Azizan Arshad set the date after lawyer Chetan Jethwani, who represented the assemblymen, requested for time to file the amendments to their originating summons (OS) following the Federal Court ruling on Aug 3 that Article 14A of the Penang state constitution enacted in 2012 was constitutional.

Chetan said the assemblymen wanted to submit amendments to their summons in light of the Federal Court decision.

“We need time to submit the amendments and we want to ask for our application to amend the OS to be heard as we want to explain why we seek these amendments,” he told the High Court here today.

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Surendra Ananth, who represented the defendants, told the court that the application to amend the summons was a tactical manoeuvre to delay the case and wanted the plaintiffs to file new summons instead of amending it.

However, Azizan, who was initially reluctant to allow the plaintiffs to submit the amendments, eventually granted Chetan two weeks to submit the application in which the arguments would be heard followed by the OS.

“I will give two weeks for both parties to argue on both the amendments and whether to ask to strike out the OS,” he said.

In 2020, the four assemblymen – Zulkifli Ibrahim (Sungai Acheh), Afif Bahardin (Seberang Jaya), Khaliq Mehtab Ishaq (Bertam) and Zolkifly Lazim (Telok Bahang) – filed three OS against the Penang state assembly and state speaker to challenge the constitutionality of Article 14A(1) of the Penang state constitution, and to stop their seats from being declared vacant.

Article 14A of the state constitution stipulates that an assemblyman should vacate his seat if he resigns, is stripped of his membership, ceases to be a politician, or is chosen as a candidate by another political party.

On April 12 this year, Azizan allowed an application by the Penang state assembly and speaker Law Choo Kiang to refer questions to the Federal Court to hear and decide on the constitutionality of the state’s anti-hopping enactment.

The assembly and Law wanted the Federal Court to decide on the question of whether Article 14A of the state constitution was void as it was inconsistent with Article 10(1)(c) of the Federal Constitution.

The Federal Court, on Aug 3, ruled that Article 14A of the Penang state constitution was valid and consistent with Article 10(1)(c) of the Federal Constitution. - FMT