High Court allows Nurul Izzah to initiate judicial review against EC

The High Court today granted Lembah Pantai Member of Parliament Nurul Izzah Anwar and 10 registered voters in the constituency leave to initiate a judicial review to challenge the proposed redelineation of electoral boundaries for parliamentary constituencies in Kuala Lumpur by the Election Commission (EC).

Judicial Commissioner Azizul Azmi Adnan made the ruling after dismissing a preliminary objection from the Attorney-General's Chambers representing the EC, its chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah and secretary Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh as respondents.

Azizul Azmi in his judgment, said the court found that the application was not frivolous and all the applicants had an interest to present their case.

He said the court agreed that there were problems and issues that could be argued in the application and should there be any defects during the decision-making process in the inquiry proceedings of the proposed redelineation, it could be reviewed in the court.

The three respondents were represented by senior federal counsel Datuk Amarjeet Singh, Suzana Atan, Shamsul Bolhassan and Azizan Md Arshad.

Azizul Azmi also allowed an application by lawyer representing all the applicants, A.Surendra, to suspend the inquiry proceedings of the proposed redelineation pending hearing of the judicial review application by the court on Feb 15.

Nurul Izzah, 36, and 10 other registered voters in the Lembah Pantai parliamentary constituency had filed the application for the judicial review on Nov 11 last year.

In the application, they demanded a certiorari order to quash the EC's notice dated Sept 15, 2016 on the proposed redelineation exercise for federal and state constituencies. - BERNAMA