High Court to rule on Musa’s suit today

KOTA KINABALU: The High Court here is set to rule today (Nov 7) on Tan Sri Musa Aman’s legal challenge against Head of State Tun Juhar Mahiruddin’s appointment of Parti Warisan Sabah president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal as Chief Minister.

High Court Judge Yew Jen Kie set the date after hearing the oral arguments from Musa’s counsels Tengku Fuad Tengku Ahmad and S. Vanugopal and State Attorney General Datuk Zaleha Rose Pandin representing Juhar and Datuk Douglas Lind who was defending Shafie.

In the suit filed in June, Musa is seeking a court declaration that he is the rightful Sabah Chief Minister through his appointment on May 10 and that Juhar’s subsequent appointment of Shafie two days later on May 12 was illegal.

Musa’s lawyers claimed that the Head of State had no powers to remove a sitting chief minister under Article 10 (4) of the State Constitution that states that the Head of State has only two discretionary powers – to appoint a chief minister and to withhold consent to a request for the dissolution of legislative assembly and no other.

Zaleha and Lind argued that the Head of State had the right to remove the chief minister who had lost the majority under Article 7(1) of the state constitution.

They argued that the majority could be ascertained by the Head of State based on statutory declarations or other means and not necessarily with the need for any vote in the legislative assembly. Based on the Federal Court decision on the Perak case involving the removal of former Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin in 2009, both Lind and Zaleha argued that as Musa had lost the confidence of the majority, it was mandatory for Musa to resign.