Selangor Government Fails To Get Leave To Appeal Voter Information
PUTRAJAYA, Sept 27 (Bernama) -- The Selangor Government should proceed with its redelineation legal challenge without the information of 136,272 voters for two delimitation exercises conducted by the Election Commission (EC) in 1994 and 2003.
Also, the state government cannot cross-examine EC chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah in relation to his affidavit which will be used as evidence in the state government\'s judicial review hearing.
This is because the state government failed today to obtain leave of the Federal Court to appeal against the appellate court\'s decision which held the EC need not provide the locality code and locality name of the 136, 272 voters sought by the state government and to cross-examine the EC chairman.
Chief Justice Tun Md Raus Sharif who chaired the three-man Federal Court bench said the state government could not be given leave to appeal as it failed to fulfill the requirements under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964.
"We find there are no circumstances that can justify the granting of leave on questions (legal questions proposed by the state government)," he said.
He said there was no novel issue arising from the state government's proposed seven questions of law, adding that there was no dispute that what the High Court and Court of Appeal decided was in respect to interlocutory matters concerning discovery of document and to cross-examine the EC chairman.
Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin and Federal Court judge Tan Sri Aziah Ali were the other two judges.
The state government filed a judicial review application at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Oct 18, last year, seeking to nullify the EC's notice of redelineation of constituencies in the states of Malaya.
The High Court in Kuala Lumpur granted the state government leave to commence the judicial review on Dec 16, last year.
The state government then filed a discovery application to obtain six types of information for its judicial review proceedings against the EC and to cross-examine the EC chairman which included the locality code and locality names of the voters.
The state government contended the information sought would have a direct bearing to one of the grounds stated in its judicial review which it alleged that the EC had used a flawed electoral roll with missing addresses in delimitation exercise.
Except for the information on locality codes and locality names of the 136,272 Selangor voters, which was granted by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on March 9 this year, the rest of the information and bid to cross-examine the EC chairman sought by the Selangor Government were rejected.
The Court of Appeal on July 20, this year reversed the High Court decision after allowing the EC's appeal.
Latheefa Koya, who is one of the lawyers representing the state government said a case management would be held tomorrow at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, in respect of the state government's judicial review.
-- BERNAMA
