‘Anwar has absolute right to be present in court’
PUTRAJAYA: In a first such move involving a civil case appeal, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is asserting that he has absolute right under the Constitution to be present in court.
Anwar made the contention through his lead counsel Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram yesterday while challenging a registrar’s decision to cancel an order to produce (OTP) him at the Court of Appeal.
“My client has a fundamental right to be present at the hearing (of his appeal). We want to file a motion to rescind the administrative order given by the registrar which we claim is unconstitutional,” Sri Ram told Justice Rohana Yusuf. He said his solicitor had informed him on Friday that the OTP was issued earlier but cancelled by a registrar.
Sri Ram requested 10 days to file the motion. The appeal before the court yesterday relates to Anwar’s application that he is an eligible voter under the Federal Constitution.
Senior Federal Counsel Datuk Amarjeet Singh did not object to a new date to be fixed for the hearing of the appeal.
Justice Rohana allowed time for the parties to sort out the date.
Anwar’s other counsel Latheefa Koya told reporters later that the court has set April 24 for the hearing of the application.
Co-counsel N. Surendran said this is the first time the absolute right of litigant to be present at the hearing of his civil case was being raised in court.
Anwar, who is serving a five-year jail term at the Sungai Buloh prison for sodomy, has sought the Election Commission (EC) to allow him to exercise his right to vote in the Permatang Pauh by-election on May 7, 2015.
The High Court had on July 15 last year ruled that a prisoner who has been registered as a voter before his conviction has the right to vote but the EC has no jurisdiction to bring him to the polling station for him to cast his vote in any election.
Justice Nor Bee Ariffin held that the respective prisoner would still have to apply to the Prisons Department director-general to make necessary arrangement for the purpose.
While she held that Anwar was not denied his right as a voter in the Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency, she dismissed his application for a declaration that he is eligible as a voter in any elections under Article 119 of the Constitution.