THE four-year delay in the Registrar of Societies’s (RoS) decision to invalidate the DAP’s central executive committee (CEC) is grounds for a legal suit, a constitutional law expert said.

Gurdial Singh Nijar said all this while, DAP had been allowed to function; and it was only yesterday that the RoS announced its decision.

Gurdial, a former Universiti Malaya law professor, said the inordinate delay for four years did not reflect good faith but instead put the federal body in bad light.

The delay itself, he said, would give DAP grounds to challenge the RoS’ decision.

There are also questions whether the decisions made by the party’s leadership these four years remain valid.

But Gurdial said if based on the doctrine of prospective overruling, the decisions made by the party leadership from the CEC election day until yesterday should be valid, but not after.

“DAP is put in a conundrum with RoS saying now that its CEC is invalid. They (the DAP CEC) should be valid until they were declared invalid,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

The CEC is calling for an emergency meeting at its Kuala Lumpur headquarters this afternoon to discuss the RoS issue.

RoS director-general Mohammad Razin Abdullah in a statement yesterday said the opposition party was to hold another party poll to elect its CEC members, as the last election in September 2013 was invalid.

The 2013 party election was a re-election following the original party polls in December 2012 which saw a “copy-paste” error made during the vote count result in irregularities.

The mistake was later discovered and corrected but unhappy members filed complaints with RoS, leading to the elected CEC to be declared invalid. The current line up of leaders was then elected in the 2013 poll.

RoS’ impartiality questioned

RoS’s independence and impartiality have always been questionable as it is placed under the Home Minister who might have conflicting interests, said political scientist Wong Chin Huat.

“RoS’ dealing with new parties’ registration applications, for example, has never been consistent and impartial. Some were dealt with speedily while others were sat on; often corresponding to the Barisan Nasional’s (BN) strategic interests,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

But DAP is likely to earn more sympathy as the order to hold a fresh election for its CEC looked like a “deliberate witch hunt or harassment”, added Wong.

DAP deputy secretary-general Dr P. Ramasamy said the timing of RoS’ order was intended to send DAP into disarray and distract the party from its general election preparations.

“It is a hit below the belt… undemocratic and unjustified. RoS had kept us in a limbo since it would not recognise the 2013 CEC re-election results,” Ramasamy said.

The Penang deputy chief minister II said the decision had come during a time when Prime Minister Najib Razak was under siege over the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.

“It is an indication that Najib is in deep trouble and is afraid that BN may not do well. Desperate people will do desperate things.”

However, Ramasamy believed this episode will not affect PKR, Amanah and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia – DAP’s partners in Pakatan Harapan (PH).

In the run-up to the last general election in 2013, when DAP candidates faced the possibility of not being allowed to contest using the party’s rocket logo, PKR and former ally PAS offered to let the candidates contest through their respective parties instead.

For Wong the political scientist, this episode is also a chance for PH to take seriously the reform proposal by civil society, that political parties should be governed by an independent election commission. – July 8, 2017.