THE Kuala Lumpur High Court’s dismissal of Chua Tian Chang’s legal challenge against his disqualification as an election candidate does not overrule previous court decisions on the fine that lawmakers can be barred from office for, lawyers said.

“I can say that this decision does not overrule the earlier decision. This is because he (the judge) rejected Chua on purely procedural grounds,” said University Malaya law lecturer Azmi Sharom.

Justice Nordin Hassan today dismissed Chua’s suit on grounds that the court had no jurisdiction on the validity of the returning officer’s decision to reject the nomination.

Chua, better known as Tian Chua, had sought a declaration to reverse the Election Commission’s decision to disqualify him on nomination day.

The PKR vice-president and Batu incumbent’s nomination was rejected by returning officer Anwar Md Zain, due to the RM2,000 fine imposed on Chua in a court case last year.

However, the Kuala Lumpur High Court had ruled in 2010 that the fine amount necessary to disqualify a member of Parliament was RM2,001 and above, according to Section 48(1)(e) of the federal constitution.

Gurdial Singh, who acted as Chua’s lead counsel, referred to a ruling by Parliament speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia in 2011 that Chua was still a lawmaker after being fined RM2,000 for another offense.

“As the speaker had ruled previously with regard to this precise issue of his RM2,000 fine – that he was not disqualified – and there was no challenge to this decision by anybody nor a contrary view by the EC then, Chua had a legitimate expectation that he would not be disqualified,” Gurdial said.

Gurdial said there had been two subsequent court judgments declaring that the fine of RM2,000 did not disqualify a lawmaker under the constitution.

Malaysian Bar Council Human Rights committee co-chairman Andrew Khoo said the ruling had been accepted in the 2013 election.

“This exercise of power by the election officer defies this judgment. The returning officer erred in law in his decision. A judicial review should be applied for to challenge such a decision.” – May 4, 2018.