THE Federal Court has dismissed applications by former Klang MP Charles Santiago and a Pandan voter to challenge former prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s request to dissolve parliament and hold a general election.

A three-member panel comprising Federal Court judges Nallini Pathmanathan, Vernon Ong and Mary Lim today dismissed the applications of Santiago and Syed Iskandar Syed Jaafar with no order on costs.

In delivering the court’s decision, Justice Nallini said the general election had been completed, a new government had been installed and parliament had convened.

She said the court was constrained to exercise its discretion to uphold the preliminary objection by the government, Ismail and the Election Commission (EC).

Justice Nallini said the current state of the new government cannot exist without the initial request for dissolution of parliament, adding that it was not possible to divorce the results from the events that commenced with and ensued from the request for the dissolution.

Santiago and Syed Iskandar had raised several questions of law for the Federal Court to determine.

They had separately filed legal actions in the High Court to challenge the then prime minister’s advice to the king to dissolve parliament.

They lost their cases in the High Court on October 28, 2022, and in the Court of Appeal on November 15, prompting them to file at the Federal Court.

In the proceedings conducted online, Low Wen Zhen – representing Ismail Sabri, the government and EC in Syed Iskandar’s case – and lawyer Zulkefli Ahmad Makinuddin, representing the defendants in Santiago’s case, argued that the case had become academic.

Low said the election had been held and its results had been announced and gazetted, and the king had appointed Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister on November 24 last year after conferring with the Conference of Rulers, in accordance with the king’s powers under the Federal Constitution.

The court earlier heard submissions from lawyers Gopal Sri Ram and Malik Imtiaz Sarwar representing Syed Iskandar and Santiago respectively.

Sri Ram argued that the court should allow the filing because the question of law proposed was about whether Ismail’s request to dissolve parliament was justiciable.

He said the Federal Court’s decision would provide guidance to legal advisers to the government if a similar challenge recurred in the future. – Bernama, January 5, 2023.