10 Gombak voters file suit against Azmin

The 10, as plaintiffs, filed the suit through Messrs Yohendra Nadarajan at the High Court here on Nov 27, named Mohamad Azmin, who is also Senior Minister of Trade and Industry, as the sole defendant.

Checks showed that the suit has been fixed for Friday (Nov 4) for case management before deputy registrar Maslinda Selamat.

In their statement of claim, the plaintiffs, aged between 36 and 64, are seeking a declaration that Mohamed Azmin, as Gombak MP, is a trustee and has a responsibility towards his constituents, including all ten of them.

They are also seeking a declaration that Mohamed Azmin had breached his fiduciary obligations, deceived them during elections in the constituency as well as breached representations owed to them.

According to the plaintiffs, the representations made by Mohamed Azmin were, among others, to offer to contest on a platform to defeat the government at that time, namely Barisan Nasional (BN), and corrupt civil servants.

They claim that the representations were false and Mohamed Azmin had only wanted their votes without making any effort to fulfil the said representations.

The 10 also claimed that they had relied on those representations to vote for the defendant in the 14th General Election.

“The right to vote as guaranteed under Article 119 (1) of the Federal Constitution is a constitutional right. Voters, including us, exercised that right by referring to the representations made by the candidate during the election campaign.

“The defendant is tied to the representations he made and the PH manifesto he used to contest. As such, he cannot make a complete change by joining the present government and component party Barisan Nasional which he had strongly criticised and condemned during his electoral campaign.

“By breaching these representations, the defendant had violated constitutional rights, especially the principles of parliamentary democracy and representative democracy, which form part of the basic structure of the constitution," they said in the statement of claim.

Therefore, the plaintiffs are applying for a declaration that the defendant has breached his fiduciary duties and the duties owed, in addition to deceiving them, and as such are seeking damages, including aggravated or exemplary damages, interests, costs and other orders deemed fit by the court.