THE Court of Appeal had taken a regressive approach in ruling that the government has the right to stop Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua from travelling overseas, a lawyer said. 

Malaysian Bar constitutional law committee co-chairman Surendra Ananth said the issue of travel ban has been a big debate since 1970s, where the Federal Court ruled that the right to travel abroad was not guaranteed under the Federal Constitution in a case of a man who was charged in criminal proceeding. 

“I disagree with the Court of Appeal’s decision but the court did not make the decision out of thin air, it is based on a federal court’s decision.

“In Tony Pua’s case, the Court of Appeal was confronted with a scenario where it could choose to follow one line of cases where it says “I can give you the right” or it could follow the older cases which say the right is not guaranteed.

“To say the Court of Appeal got it wrong is too much, but it took a very regressive approach,” he told a forum on travel ban at MalaysiaKini’s office in Petaling Jaya today. 

On July 5, the Court of Appeal dismissed Pua’s appeal to set aside the High Court’s July 2016 dismissal of his judicial review application challenging the travel ban imposed on him. Justice Mohd Zawawi said there was no reason for the panel to interfere with the High Court’s decision which then led him to dismiss the application with no cost.

In his judicial review application, Pua claimed he was prevented from leaving the country for Yogyakarta, Indonesia on July 2, 2015 using his passport which is valid until April 23, 2020. Pua claimed the decision was ineffective under the law as it contradicts his rights to travel abroad using his valid passport.

Ananth said that in the 60s and 70s, Malaysian courts used to take a more conventional and literal approach in interpreting the Article 5 (1) of the Federal Constitution, unlike in the 90s and 2000s, where courts started to read the mentioned article more generously. 

Article 5 (1) states that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty save in accordance with the law. – July 15, 2017.