EC wins appeal, no need to provide information to Selangor govt

PUTRAJAYA: The Election Commission ( EC) need not have to provide information on locality codes and locality names of 136,272 Selangor voters in 1994 and 2003 for its redelineation exercise to the Selangor state government.

A three-man bench of the Court of Appeal yesterday unanimously allowed the EC's appeal to set aside a High Court order for it to provide those information.

The Selangor government also lost its appeal to cross- examine EC chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah after the same panel of judges dismissed its (the state government's) appeal.

The court panel comprising Justices Datuk Mohd Zawawi Salleh, Datuk Abdul Rahman Sebli and Datuk Kamardin Hashim made no order on costs.

On Oct 19 last year, the Selangor government filed its legal action against the EC, the EC chairman DatukSeriMohdHashimAbdullah and EC secretary Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh seeking to nullify the EC's notice of redelineation claiming it violated the Federal Constitution in drawing its new electoral boundaries.

The Selangor government also wanted a declaration that the notice was lacking in details leading to voters, local authorities or the state government unable to exercise their constitutional right to file representations.

It wanted the court to quash the EC's notice and an order to direct it to publish a fresh notice on the proposed exercise. 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.

The Selangor government had alleged that the EC had acted unconstitutionally and irrationally in the delimitation exercise in using a defective electoral roll as approximately 136, 272 voters in Selangor had no corresponding addresses in the electoral roll.

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 crossexamine the EC chairman sought by the Selangor government were rejected.

The Selangor government, however, did not pursue its appeal on the High Court dismissal in respect of the other information.

Senior federal counsel Alice Loke, appearing for the EC, submitted that the information on an elector's address was not required after registration since what was needed was the locality to determine the elector's point of registration, adding that the locality would not change unless the elector requests to make a change.

Senior federal counsel Datuk Amarjeet Singh said the electoral rolls' information no longer existed by operation of law as the information had been incorporated to the current electoral roll.

He said questioning the veracity of electoral rolls is disallowed under Section 9A of the Elections Act 1958.

Lawyer S Ambiga representing the Selangor government argued that the information was needed to verify the registration of 136, 372 voters. — Bernama