Questions over Article 48 of federal constitution

Batu MP Tian Chua’s status as parliamentarian is under question following a preliminary objection raised by his GE13 polls opponent over a 2009 court ruling involving the former. 

(Bernama) – The Barisan Nasional (BN) will seek the Federal Court’s interpretation of Article 48(1)(e)of the Federal Constitution to facilitate its election petition to challenge the result for the Batu parliamentary constituency in the last general election.

Counsel Mohd Hafarizam Harun (picture), who represented the Batu BN candidate Dr Dominic Lau Hoe Chai, told reporters he would also raise a preliminary objection on Batu MP Tian Chua’s status pending the outcome of the application for the Apex court to interpret the article.

Article 48(1)(e) of the Federal Constitution states that an MP is disqualified if sentenced to jail for a term of not less than one year or is fined not less than RM2 000 and has not received a pardon.

In 2009, the Magistrate’s Court sentenced Chua Tian Chang, better known as Tian Chua, to six months’ jail and fined him RM3,000 for injuring a policeman in 2007.

However, the PKR MP succeeded in his appeal to the High Court to reduce the fine to RM2,000.

Lau, in his petition filed on June 11, claimed that Tian Chua was ineligible to contest in the election as he had been fined RM2,000 and that the returning officer had failed to reject his nomination papers.

He claimed that the returning officer had breached Regulation 7(1)(c) of the Elections (Conduct of Elections) Regulations 1981.

In the general election, Tian Chua defeated Lau by a majority of 13,284 votes.

In a related development, Election Judge Zabariah Mohd Yusoff set July 9 for further case management in three other cases of election petition, for the Setiawangsa, Titiwangsa and Lembah Pantai parliamentary constituencies.