Court to decide on February 17 on leave for judicial review of Sarawak delineation exercise

The Kuching High Court will decide on February 17 whether leave should be granted on PKR's ex parte application for a judicial review on the Election Commission's redelineation exercise in Sarawak.

Justice Yew Jen Kie made the decision after hearing arguments on the application, filed by the opposition party's state assemblyman for Batu Lintang See Chee How (pic), and a voter in Ulu Baram, Pauls Baya, in chambers.

She has also allowed all parties – PKR, the EC as respondent, the Sarawak government and Sarawak legislative assembly as interested parties – could make further submissions, if they wish by February 4 and make their replies to the fresh submissions by February 6.

See and Baya are seeking court orders to declare the publication, or notification, of the EC to review the delineation saying it was not in compliance with the provisions contained in the Thirteenth Schedule of the Federal Constitution.

The failure, as stated in the affidavit, therefore, rendered the exercise “null, void and of no effect”.

See, representing himself and Baya, argued that the EC had failed to publish the January 5 notice in a newspaper that is widely circulated in the constituencies affected.

Shamsul Bolhassan, a senior federal counsel representing the attorney-general and Azizan Mohd Arshad, a senior federal counsel representing the EC however, argued the EC “went above and beyond” what is required by the law by publishing the notice is the sister papers of the New Sarawak Tribune and Utusan Sarawak, the New Straits Times, Utusan Malaysia and the Borneo Post, Sabah edition.

See said the New Sarawak Tribune and its Malay language sister paper Utusan Sarawak have limited circulation in Sarawak, and he has “affidavit evidence filed” to show that these papers have no circulation in various rural centres whose voters are affected as required by the law.

He said the same was with the national newspapers NST, Utusan Malaysia and the Sabah Borneo Post.

See is seeking a mandatory court order to direct the EC to republish the notice of its proposed recommendations to review the division of the constituencies “in full compliance with the provisions contained in the Thirteenth Schedule”.

See also argued the delineation exercise was unconstitutional and is also null, void and of no effect as the EC had not had the power to make changes to parliamentary constituencies in the delineation exercise.

He was referring to his constituency of Batu Lintang, which had been moved from the Stampin parliamentary constituency to the Kuching parliamentary constituency under the exercise.

He argued there has yet and has been no amendment to Article 46 of the Federal Constitution to change the composition of the Parliament and the EC had acted in excess of their legal authority and or power to review the division of Sarawak into federal constituencies.

Various citizens’ groups in the country, including Bersih, Tindak Malaysia and the Rise of Sarawak Effort (ROSE) have all assisted PKR in their research to build their legal case for this application.

- TMI