THE speaker of the Sarawak state assembly, Mohamad Asfia Awang Nassar, will file an appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision last Friday to uphold a High Court ruling that the state assembly had acted beyond its powers disqualifying DAP’s Dr Ting Tiong Choon as Pujut assemblyman.

The Court of Appeal decision was split 2-to-1 with justices Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Harminder Singh Dhaliwal upholding the June 2017 High Court decision, while justice Mary Lim was the dissenting voice.

Asfia, the first appellant in the appeal, said Lim decided that the qualification of the rep was “within the mandate of the assembly to decide”.

Sarawak Minister of International Trade and E-Commerce Wong Soon Koh had moved the ministerial motion on May 12 last year to disqualify Ting for acquiring an Australian citizenship while he was living there.

Article 17(1)(g) of the state constitution notes that “a person is disqualified from being elected as an elected member of Dewan Undangan Negeri (state assembly) if he has voluntarily acquired citizenship of or exercised rights of citizenship in and has made declaration of allegiance to any country outside the federation”.

“In the light of these circumstances, it is inevitable I have to instruct my advocates to make an application for leave to appeal to the federal court,” said Asfia.

The Sarawak state assembly on May 12 last year disqualified the 51-year-old medical doctor over the Australian citizenship he took in 2010.

Ting, who never renounced his Malaysian citizenship, later gave up his Australian citizenship on April 4, 2016 – some three weeks before the state election – so he could return and contest in the polls.

In a four-cornered fight, he polled 8,899 votes to see off his nearest rival, Barisan Nasional’s Hii King Chiong, who polled 7,140 votes.

Hii sought to declare with the Election Commission that the election result was null and void as Ting should be disqualified on the grounds that he was an Australian citizen.

The court threw out the case on technicalities as Hii failed to meet the mandatory legal requirements on submitting his petition and on the manner the security deposit should be paid.

Wong then tabled a ministerial motion at the assembly’s sitting on May 12 last year to disqualify Ting.

In the voting that followed the motion, 70 BN members voted to disqualify the first-time assemblyman while the 10 opposition members – seven DAP and three from PKR – voted against.

Ting then took the dismissal to the High Court, which ruled that the state assembly was not a competent body to hear the question of Ting’s Australian citizenship, and found that Asfia had not properly applied the principle of natural justice to give Ting a fair hearing.

On Friday, Ting told reporters he hoped the appellants would not appeal the court decision and allow him to move on and discharge his duties as the elected representative for the people of Pujut. – July 16, 2018.