Dr Ting stays as Pujut rep
KUCHING: The Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed the appeals by Sarawak Legislative Assembly ( DUN) Speaker Datuk Amar Mohamad Asfia Awang Nassar and International Trade and ECommerce Minister Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh against the High Court’s decision to reinstate Dr Ting Tiong Choon as Pujut assemblyman.
According to presiding judge Datuk Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, the DUN has no jurisdiction to decide on the disqualification of Dr Ting because the disqualifying factor occurred before the election.
He said by virtue of the wording under the Sarawak Constitution, it could only give the DUN the power to disqualify a member for post- election offences.
Abang Iskandar also said the DUN proceeding where the majority of members of the august House voted in favour of Dr Ting’s disqualification was rendered ‘ null and void’ due to lack of jurisdiction.
The other two Court of Appeal judges on the three-member panel were Datuk Harminder Singh Dhaliwal and Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan.
Harminder also agreed that the appeals be dismissed.
However Lim, in delivering her dissenting judgement, maintained that Dr Ting clearly had no qualification to be elected as an assemblyman because he took Australian citizenship and ‘ pledged allegiance to a foreign power’.
She added that Dr Ting’s renunciation of his Australian citizenship did not qualify him to be a Sarawak’s elected DUN representative and therefore, he should remain disqualified from the Assembly.
In stating that she did not agree with the majority decision, Lim said the right to sit in the DUN ‘is part of parliamentary privilege’.
She viewed the DUN as having the power to disqualify Dr Ting, and also having power and jurisdiction to decide on this issue.
On June 17 last year, the High Court ruled against the DUN Sarawak’s decision to disqualify Dr Ting as Pujut assemblyman when Judge Datuk Douglas Christo Primus Sikayun held that the plaintiff was not disqualified and was entitled to remain as an elected assemblyman.