Anwar retracts bid to review Pardons Board’s decision
KUALA LUMPUR: PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has withdrawn his appeal in the Federal Court over his judicial review application challenging the Pardons Board’s decision rejecting his petition for a royal pardon over his sodomy conviction.
His lawyer Latheefa Koya who informed the media, said Anwar was withdrawing the appeal as he had been given a full pardon by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Muhammad V on May 16 this year.
Latheefa said the notice of discontinuance to withdraw the civil case was filed at the Federal Court and High Court on June 26 and July 4 this year respectively.
On June 24, 2015, Anwar and his wife, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and their two daughters, Nurul Izzah and Nurul Nuha filed an application for leave for judicial review to quash the board’s decision on March 16, 2015 and to compel it to advise the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong to pardon and release Anwar.
They named the Pardons Board, the Attorney-General and the Malaysian Government as respondents.
On July 15, 2016, the High Court dismissed the application for leave and also rejected Anwar’s application to refer a question of law to the Federal Court for deliberation on the decision-making process of the Pardons Board.
Not satisfied with the decision, Anwar then filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal and on Jan 18 this year, the court reinstated Anwar’s application to seek leave to commence a judicial review to challenge the Pardons Board’s decision at the High Court
The Court of Appeal also allowed Anwar and his family’s application to refer legal questions to the Federal Court to determine whether the decision-making process by the Pardons Board on the royal pardon could be challenged in court.
The High Court then referred the question of law to the Federal Court and the hearing of the judicial review in the High Court was not heard pending the outcome of the Federal Court’s decision.
Anwar, 71, was sentenced to five years in prison after the Federal Court, on February 2015, upheld his conviction on a charge of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, in 2008.