Monday 11 May 2009

High Court rules Nizar is legitimate MB

The Kuala Lumpur High Court rules today that Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin is still the legitimate menteri besar of Perak, reports the Star.

High Court judge Datuk Abdul Aziz Abd Rahim said the menteri besar can only be dismissed by a no-confidence motion in the state legislative assembly. This did not happen in Nizar's case.

Abdul Aziz, in his decision on the judicial review application filed by Nizar, ruled that as such, there was no vacancy in the menteri besar post.

Datuk Seri Nizar is on his way to Ipoh to seek an audience with the Sultan of Perak to ask for his consent to dissolve the State Assembly.


Nizar is rightful MB: High Court

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court here ruled on Monday that Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin is the rightful Perak Mentri Besar, and not Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir.

In an immediate response, Zambry said he would apply for a stay pending appeal.

In his ruling, Justice Abdul Aziz Abd Rahim said that a new mentri besar could not be appointed as the office had not been vacated.

He said a mentri besar can only be dismissed by a vote of no confidence, and upheld the Stephen Kalong Ningkan ruling.

He noted that the Perak State Legislative did not hold a vote of no confidence.

In 1966, Sarawak Chief Minister Datuk Stephen Kalong Ningkan was ousted when the state governor showed him a letter of no confidence issued by 21 out of 42 legislators and asked Ningkan to resign.

Ningkan refused, saying the letters were not tantamount to a vote of no confidence in the state legislative assembly. He was sacked by the governor but eventually reinstated by the Borneo High Court, which saw the necessity of a formal vote of no confidence.

According to the Nutgraph, the judge ruled ruled that the governor can only dismiss the chief minister when both these conditions are satisfied:

(a) The chief minister has lost the confidence of the House, and

(b) The chief minister has refused to resign and failed to advise a dissolution.

Nizar had filed for a judicial review on Feb 13, seeking a declaration that he is the rightful mentri besar of Perak and an injunction to bar Dr Zambry from discharging his duties as the mentri besar.

On March 6, Justice Lau Bee Lan had ruled that there were constitutional issues involving the interpretation of Article 16 (6) of the Perak Constitution and later referred four consitutional questions to the Federal Court for determination.

However, on March 23, the Federal Court ruled that the case of who the rightful mentri besar is should be heard by the High Court.

Nizar’s lead counsel Sulaiman Abdullah, in wrapping up his submissions last week, said the Constitution was the “genius of the Malaysian people”, adding that the court had a duty to uphold it.

Over the last few days, he had submitted that the Sultan, while granted powers in the Perak Constitution to appoint a mentri besar, could not dismiss him.

The only way Nizar could be dismissed, he said, was through a vote of no-confidence in the House.

He also said that a mentri besar could request for the State Assembly to be dissolved in the middle of a term without losing the confidence of the majority of the House.

Dr Zambry’s lawyer Datuk Cecil Abraham, however, argued that Nizar went by Article 16(6) of the Perak Constitution when he sought an audience with the Sultan – this article specifically provides for the mentri besar to request for a dissolution when he has lost the confidence of the majority in the House.

Under the article, Nizar is required to tender the resignation of his executive councillors when his request was rejected, he said.

Nizar is expected to seek an audience with the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah, to get his consent to dissolve the Assembly and call for fresh state elections.

12 comments:

matt said...

Tok mommy,

Am glad I was wrong.

Anonymous said...

Baik juga keputusan mahkamah menyebelahi Nizar. Kalau tidak berlarutan dan tidak kehabisan kekacauan yang akan dibuat oleh penyokong pakatan.

Anonymous said...

bloody stupid judges who do not know the law and have been bought over by BN

siakap said...

Maria,
Pi mai pi Mai tan tu juga. BN masih mempunyai dua lagi peluang membuat rayuan, ia itu Mahkamah Rayuan dan Mahkamah Persekutuan. End of the day, rakyat Perak juga rugi.

anak Perak said...

Hey. don't jump for joy. It's still a long way to go. It's not over yet.

Next assembly sitting BN can table a motion of no confidence on Nizar. After all they have 31 and PR has 28.

Siva will be reinststated speaker cus Ganesan's appointment is now considered null, illegal not legitimate. But as I said the Bn has a slim majority. So majority rules.

Will be back to square one.

But until then, the running of the state will go back to Pakatan.

What a mess. The BN excos will have to relinquish their respective posts which will be given back to the former Pakatan excos.

Now what abt the Camrys. Have they been auctioned off?

So if they have, the new Perdanas are the rezeki of the Pakatan excos. Lol!

That's it. This is the kind of mess created if the wrong political decision is made.

Stupid aint it?

maria a samad (kak ton) said...

I say matt, you were rather presemptious, werent you?

Anon 5:05pm, Dont quite understand what you mean. The judgement was in favour of Pakatan.

How was it that the judge had been bought over by BN?

I would assume that you mean to say that the BN Govt had bribed the judge so that the decision would be against itself?

Doesn't make sense, does it?

Lee said...

Congratulations to YB Nizar!This actually means that the assembly sitting under the raintree was legitimate with all its implications.
If there is any emergency meeting Pakatan will win hands down simply because Pangkor Pele and his ex-cos have been suspended!Hee, hee! hee hee!

Anonymous said...

tok mommy

sorry it was a pre-prepared statement and I thought nizar lost.

Dhahran Sea said...

Kak Ton,
Lega rasa... it shows that afterall our sultans are NOT maksum... even if they are Oxbridge-or-Nottinghambridge law graduates with "impeccable" track records... and it makes sense that the right to decide on governing of a state should be returned to the rakyat!

maria a samad (kak ton) said...

Hi Dhahran Sea,

I got a feeling this euphoria is going to be shortlived.

Najib has just said BN is going to appeal and when asked whether fresh elections would be held his reply was "that is the discretion of the Sultan".

As expected the BN is not going to take the court ruling lying down.

There is a possibility the Perak BN Aduns will table a motion of no-confidence against Nizar because they still have the numbers in the State Assembly.

BN has 28 Aduns plus those so-called three BN-friendly- Independents as opposed to Pakatan's 28.

So BN should have no problem in pushing the motion through if they want to table the motion.

Like anak Perak above says: “It’s a long way to go. It’s not over yet.”

Dhahran Sea said...

Salam Kak Ton,
Fully agreed with you. My concern is, if some smart advisors to Najib escalate this "game"... its a no-win situation to UMNO/BN... it was perceived by many (including by some UMNO veterans, e.g. TDM & Ku Li) as a "back door" political maneuvering in the first place... and it could get the PM into political quicksand at a time when he should be concentrating on getting the country out of the recession!

maria a samad (kak ton) said...

Dhahran Sea,

The post of MB has now reverted to Zambry.

The Court of Appeal has granted a stay of execution (today, May 12) on yesterday's High Court decision which recognised Nizar as the rightful Perak menteri besar.

Its back to status-quo.

Nizar had been in office for less than 24 hours since the High Court decision.

The decision yesterday in favour of Nizar was too good to be true.

I had expected this - that the Appeal court will grant Zambry's application.