Federal Court to decide if it is Speaker or EC who has power to declare assembly seat vacant
By Humayun Kabir (The Sun)
IPOH (March 16, 2009) : The High Court in Ipoh today refered to the Federal Court to decide whether Perak State Assembly Speaker V Sivakumar or the Elections commission (EC) has the power to declare state assembly seats vacant.
Judicial Commissioner Ridwan Ibrahim decided to refer to the Federal Court after hearing for about two hours of submissions by lawyers for Sivakumar and those of assemblymen Mohd Osman Mohd Jaitu (Changat Jering), Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi (Behrang ) and Hee Yit Foong ( Jelapang).
The three assemblymen had filed suit against Sivakumar who had declared their seats "vacant "on the strength of their pre-dated resignation letters, and subsequently informed the EC to hold by-elections for the seats.
The EC however decided against it as the three assemblymen had claimed they had not resigned. The trio then applied to the High Court to declare that their state seats were not vacant.
Earlier before hearing the submissions at about 9.40am, Ridwan declared the open court as his chambers and all media personnel, the public and lawyers not connected with the case were asked to leave the courtroom which was locked out to the public.
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Later at about 12noon, Sivakumar's lead lawyer, Chan Kok Keong, told a press conference outside the court that Ridwan had ruled that the Federal Court has to decide on the state constitutional crisis.
Ridwan was to decide on the questions to be raised at the Federal Court to determine the legality of the three state seats in the afternoon.
At another media conference shortly after, lead lawyer for the three Independent assemblymen, Datuk Mohd Hafarizam Haron said referring the case to the Federal Court ws not something new.
He said even the case filed in the Kuala Lumpur High Court by former Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin against Mentri Besar Zambry Abdul Kadir to determine the legality of the Perak Mentri Besar's post, had earlier been referred to the Federal Court for a quick solution to the Perak state constitutional crisis.
Asked whether the issue of the immunity of the State Speaker was raised in the court, Hafarizam replied: "No, the matter was not raised."
Sivakumar was yesterday represented by five private lawyers comprising Chan, Nga Hock Cheh, Leong Cheok Keng, Augustine Anthony and Mohd Asri Othman.
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Ridwan had on three occasions on March 3, 5 and 10 ruled that Sivakumar, being a public servant, could not use private lawyers but must be represented by the State Legal Adviser Datuk Ahmad Kamal Shahid.
Sivakumar appealed against Ridwan’s order to the Appeal Court in Kuala Lumpur which decided that he had basis to engage his own private lawyers to represent him in the two cases.
The three assemblymen were represented by six lawyers –Mohd Hafarizam, Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamalludin, Badrul Hishah Abdul Wahab, Faizul Hilmi Ahmad Zambri, Syed Faisal Syed Abdullah and M. Reza Hassan, who are the same lawyers representing Zambry.
Meanwhile, lawyer Ng Mung Yin is holding watching brief for DAP Perak while T Shan represented the Bar Council.
