{"id":91298,"date":"2020-09-08T18:47:14","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T10:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=91298"},"modified":"2020-09-08T19:08:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T11:08:25","slug":"court-dismisses-appeal-on-sabah-assembly-dissolution-state-election-to-proceed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=91298","title":{"rendered":"Court dismisses appeal on Sabah Assembly dissolution, state election to proceed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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PUTRAJAYA, Sept 8 — Former Chief Minister of Sabah Tan Sri Musa Aman (centre) surrounded by media members outside the Court of Appeal here. The court today dismissed the appeal brought on by 33 assemblymen against a High Court ruling over the Sabah Governor’s decision to dissolve the state legislative assembly on July 30. Photo courtesy of BERNAMA.

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By Suriati Sidek Ahmad
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 8 (NNN-BERNAMA) — The Court of Appeal today dismissed the appeal brought by 33 assemblymen against a High Court ruling over the Sabah Yang Dipertua Negeri\u2019s decision in dissolving the state legislative assembly on July 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, who led a three-member bench comprising Justices Datuk Abu Bakar Jais and Datuk Supang Lian, also rejected the assemblymen\u2019s bid for a stay of today\u2019s ruling pending an application for leave to appeal to the Federal Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this ruling, the state election will proceed as scheduled. The Election Commission (EC)  has set Sept 12 for nomination and Sept 26 for polling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 33 assemblymen, led by former Sabah chief minister Tan Sri Musa Aman, had appealed against the Kota Kinabalu High Court dismissal of their application for leave for a judicial review to challenge the decision of the Yang Dipertua Negeri made on July 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel, in a unanimous decision, ruled that Sabah Yang Dipertua Negeri Tun Juhar Mahiruddin had correctly exercised his discretion within the provisions of the Sabah Constitution in dissolving the state legislative assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Abdul Karim said the panel is of the view that no error was made by High Court Judicial Commissioner Leonard David Shim when he ruled that the case is non-justiciable (meaning it is not subject to trial in a court of law) and therefore not amenable for judicial review. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith all the case law presented before us, the court is of the view that when it comes to the subject of dissolution of the state assembly, the court is of the position not to interfere with the decision to dissolve the assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe therefore dismiss the appeal by the 33 appellants and affirm the decision of the Judicial Commissioner,\u201d said Justice Abdul Karim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an immediate reaction, counsel Datuk Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin, who represented the assemblymen, made an oral request for a stay of today\u2019s ruling pending an application for leave to appeal to the Federal Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabah Attorney-General Brenndon Keith Soh, representing Tun Juhar, objected to the stay application, saying that at this juncture there is no appeal pending before the Federal Court and they would have to seek the stay when the leave application is filed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Counsel Datuk Cyrus Das, who appeared for Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal and the state government, also objected to the stay request, saying the election machinery had taken every step for the election where 30,000 personnel and 73 returning officers are involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that according to provisions in the Sabah Constitution, the election must be held within 60 days upon the dissolution of the state assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have 72 hours for nomination in the state election \u2026 and I think there is too much of disturbance on the ground \u2026 and the particular people who want to contest should know where they stand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Federal Counsel Suzana Atan, who appeared for the EC, also opposed the stay application on the grounds that the election machinery is ready and nomination is set for this Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musa and several of the other assemblymen were present in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The High Court, in dismissing the application of the 33 assemblymen on Aug 17, had ruled that Mohd Shafie had acted within the Sabah Constitution in requesting Tun Juhar to dissolve the state assembly and  said the proclamation to dissolve the state assembly was constitutional and valid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their application for leave for the judicial review, Musa and the assemblymen backing him had sought  court orders to quash Mohd Shafie\u2019s request to Tun Juhar to dissolve the assembly; quash the proclamation of the dissolution of the assembly; and quash the Sabah state government gazette notification on the dissolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 33 elected representatives claimed on July 29 that they made up the majority in the state assembly and wanted Tun Juhar to swear in a new government which would oust the state government of Mohd Shafie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohd Shafie, who is Semporna MP and incumbent assemblyman for Senallang, pre-empted Musa\u2019s move by advising Tun Juhar to dissolve the state assembly, which had 65 members at that time, including five nominated assemblymen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

— NNN-BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Suriati Sidek Ahmad PUTRAJAYA, Sept 8 (NNN-BERNAMA) — The Court of Appeal today dismissed the appeal brought by 33 assemblymen against a High Court ruling over the Sabah Yang Dipertua Negeri\u2019s decision in dissolving the state legislative assembly on July 30. Justice Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, who led a three-member bench comprising Justices Datuk Abu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":91301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[288,300,318,297],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91298"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}