THE president of the Court of Appeal will decide on the application of the Selangor government for the recusal of the panel of judges hearing the state challenge on the redelineation of electoral boundaries.
Justice Mohd Zawawi Salleh said that the panel will be decided on by next week.
“A new bench will hopefully be decided on. We will adjourn and the hearing will be held on March 27.”
Selangor government lawyer Cyrus Das argued that two judges should be dismissed on the grounds that there was a risk of an element of predetermination.
He was referring to justices Zawawi and Kamardin Hashim.
“(This is) due to the judges having decided on similar issues in the Sarawak case of See Chee How and the Ipoh case of M. Kulasegaran’s challenge against the Election Commission (EC),” he said.
Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal denied the Selangor government’s application to prevent EC from submitting the state redelineation report to the prime minister.
The three-man panel decided to throw out the Selangor government’s application on the grounds it prevented EC from performing its constitutional duty and that it was Parliament which ultimately decided on the matter.
Justice Idris Harun said the panel unanimously decided to dismiss the application which would have prevented the report being handed in until the Selangor government’s appeal was resolved.
In 2016, Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali filed a judicial review application to challenge the proposed redelineation of electoral boundaries for parliamentary and state constituencies.
High Court judge Azizul Azmi Adnan in December dismissed Selangor’s judicial review to challenge EC’s redrawing exercise, but allowed them a stay to conduct a local inquiry.
The stay was removed by the Court of Appeal later on, and EC has been conducting local inquiries in the state. – March 23, 2018.
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Comments
If the Court of Appeal hearing on Mar 27 promptly upholds the Constitution with a speedy decision, it will be in the nick of time to halt the wheel of deceit which will roll through parliament with the infamous new electoral roll within a few days to enable the ruling coalition to steal the coming election.
All court decisions have hitherto rejected voters’ appeal against EC’s unscrupulous and unconstitutional redelineation exercise on the false premise that the judiciary has no business to meddle into the task entrusted to the EC by the Constitution. The judges said it is Parliament, not the judiciary, which should decide on the acceptability of the redelineation proposal.
Wrong! The court is not asked to say yes or no to the redelineation proposal, but to intervene where heinous violation of the Constitution has been committed by the EC, and to put it right before presenting to Parliament for approval.
As famously expounded in a unanimous Federal Court landmark judgment dated Jan 29, 2018, written by the illustrious Justice Zainun Ali on the Indira Gandhi case, I quote, “The judiciary is thus entrusted with keeping every organ and institution of the state within its legal boundary. Concomitantly the concept of the independence of the judiciary is the foundation of the principles of the separation of powers.”
It is fervently hoped that the in-coming panel of judges will uphold our Constitution fearlessly and place the interests of the people at the foremost in coming to their decision.
Posted 8 years ago by Kim quek · Reply