A three-man Court of Appeal led by Justice Mohd Zawawi Salleh today dismissed Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran and Ipoh Timor MP Thomas Su Keong Siong’s appeal, ruling that the court was not the right forum to hear their judicial review application.
“After a careful deliberation, we have reached a unanimous decision that the redelineation exercise is not amenable to judicial review,” Justice Zawawi said.
He said the court was bound by a Federal Court decision that the EC’s recommendations in such an exercise had no legal effect.
“We therefore affirm the finding of the High Court and dismiss the appeal (leave application for judicial review),” he said.
Today’s ruling also meant that two other similar applications from Johor and Penang against the EC would have come to an end.
Even the Selangor government’s judicial review application risked being discontinued as the Court of Appeal ruling binds the High Court.
Selangor had last year obtained leave from the court to allow the merit of the complaints to be heard.
On July 18, the Court of Appeal also reversed a leave for judicial review application given to seven voters by the High Court in Melaka on May 3.
The voters from the Kota Melaka and Bukit Katil parliamentary constituencies complained that the EC did not follow the redelineation guidelines.
Spokesman for the voters Chan Tsu Chong said they would be filing an appeal to the Federal Court this week, before the expiry of the 30-day deadline.
Earlier today, government lawyer Amarjeet Singh told the bench that the final decision of the EC’s proposal was vested in Parliament.
He said the EC would present its report after conducting local inquiries to the prime minister before presenting it to the legislature for approval.
“The EC’s proposal is advisory in nature and it is up to Parliament whether to accept the report or otherwise,” he said.
Amarjeet said the local inquiries by the EC with voters was merely a consultation process.
Lawyer Surenthra Ananth said the court was the right forum to give effect to the constitutional rights of voters.
“Our challenge will be academic once the EC submits the report to the prime minister to be tabled in Parliament for approval,” he said.
He said the EC had a duty to give reasons why it redrew boundaries that went against the guidelines in the constitution.
Kulasegaran, who is also a lawyer, said he and Thomas would also likely appeal today’s decision in the Federal Court.
“The EC did not conduct a proper discourse during the local inquiries,” he told reporters.
Thomas said there was no point to hold local inquiries when it was unclear if the EC was receptive to the feedback of voters.
“A Federal Court has ruled that once the report is tabled in Parliament, the court could not scrutinise it. So where is the voters’ remedy?” he asked.
On May 5, Justice Che Ruzima Ghazali threw out the judicial review as it was frivolous and that there was no arguable case.
Che Ruzima held that all six issues raised by Kulasegaran and Thomas could be ventilated in the second local inquiry of the EC, which had now been completed.
The MPs claimed the suggested redelineation exercise went against the one-man, one-vote principle, a violation of the equality provision under Article 8(2) of the constitution.