S’gor hits dead end in voter detail bid

Federal Court dismisses state govt’s leave application in redelineation case

PUTRAJAYA: The Selangor government has failed all legal avenues to obtain details of the 136,272 voters in Selangor, which is crucial for its attempt to nullify the Election Commission’s (EC) notice of redelineation for the state.

Chief Justice Tun Md Raus Sharif, who chaired a three-man Federal Court panel, in a unanimous decision, dismissed the state’s leave application yesterday.

Without the leave, the Selangor state also could not cross-examine EC chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah regarding his affidavit, which would have been used as evidence in the High Court to seek the nullification.

“We find that there are no circumstances to justify the leave to be granted,” Md Raus said yesterday.

He said the state government could not be given the leave following its failure to fulfil the requirement under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964.

He added that there were no novel issues that arose from the state government’s seven questions of law.

Other judges on the panel were Justices Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin and Aziah Ali.

Met after the decision, counsel Latheefa Koya, who represented the state government, said the High Court has fixed today for case management.

On Oct 19 last year, the state filed its case against the EC, Mohd Hashim and EC secretary Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh.

It is seeking to nullify the EC’s notice of redelineation, claiming it violated the Federal Constitution.

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

It also wants the court to quash the EC notice and an order to direct it to publish a fresh notice on the proposed exercise.

The Selangor government alleged that the EC had acted unconstitutionally and irrationally in the redelineation exercise by using a defective electoral roll, as apparently 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 voters, which was granted by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on March 9 this year, the rest of the information and bid to cross-examine the EC chairman were rejected.

On July 20, the Court of Appeal unanimously allowed the EC to appeal to set aside the High Court order for it to provide information on locality codes and the names of 136,272 Selangor voters in 1994 and 2003 redelineation exercises in the state.

The appellate court also disallowed the Selangor government's appeal to cross-examine Mohd Hashim.