A three-man bench, chaired by Mohd Zawawi Salleh, is expected to deliver written grounds after listening to submissions from lawyers for Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua and the government on April 19.
Zawawi, who sat with justices Idrus Harun and Kamardin Hashim, deferred decision as far-reaching constitutional issues had been raised.
Pua dragged the authorities to court after he was prevented from leaving the country at the KL International Airport 2 on July 2, 2015.
The DAP national publicity chief was supposed to go to Yogyakarta that day using his passport, which was valid until April 23, 2020.
He claims the decision was ineffective under the law as it was a contradiction in terms of his legitimate right to travel abroad using his valid passport.
The High Court last year, in dismissing Pua’s judicial review, held the travel ban on him was valid.
Tomorrow’s ruling is also a suspense as bench chairman Zawawi had last year ruled that former Malaysian Bar president Ambiga Sreenevasan’s travel ban to Sabah was legal because Malaysia’s highest court had ruled that the judiciary cannot inquire why such a decision was made.
Zawawi, who sat with Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Ahmadi Asnawi in that case, said Section 59A(1) of the Immigration Act was drafted for the exclusion of judicial review in any court of any act done or any decision made by the home minister.
Zawawi said Ambiga has no right to be heard as it was clear from case laws that the constitutional rights, as guaranteed under Article 5(1), could be taken away in accordance with the law.
In Pua’s case, government lawyer Shamsul Bolhasan said the passport was a privilege of the sovereign, not an absolute right of the citizen.
Shamsul said Pua’s complaint was also not subject to judicial review as the Immigration Act had excluded the court from scrutinising the director-general’s decision.
However, Pua’s lawyer Gobind Singh Deo said the facts in his client’s case differed from that of Ambiga.
“Pua was stopped from travelling overseas from Malaysia while Ambiga was restrained from entering Sabah from the peninsula,” he told FMT.
On Sept 28, 2015, the High Court in Kota Kinabalu ruled that Sabah’s prohibition against entry to Ambiga would remain as it cannot review the powers of the state’s immigration department.
However, Gobind said the outcome in Pua’s case would have a bearing on Bersih 2.0 chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah, who failed to get the remedies sought in the High Court after she was stopped from leaving Malaysia last year.
Maria has filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal.
On May 19, Justice Nik Hasmat Nik Mohamad ruled that the Immigration Act did not allow the courts to hear complaints from citizens who are banned from travelling overseas.
Maria claimed that she was informed of her travel ban just shortly before she was to board a flight to South Korea on May 15 last year at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
In her court papers, Maria had applied to quash the decision made by the immigration director-general to blacklist her from travelling abroad.
Meanwhile, political cartoonist Zulkiflee SM Anwar Haque’s judicial review challenge to an overseas travel ban imposed on him since last year also hinges on tomorrow’s Court of Appeal ruling.
The High Court has fixed Sept 25 to hear the complaint of the cartoonist, better known as Zunar.
He was barred from travelling overseas when he was stopped from boarding a flight to Singapore last Oct 17 to attend a forum at the National University of Singapore.
Gobind said any outcome in Pua’s case would bind the High Court in Zunar’s case.