Court to decide next month on Penang’s anti-hopping law
The High Court right here has set Jan 20 for a choice on whether or not an editorial of the Penang country charter to prohibit celebration-hopping may be validly implemented to 4 assemblymen.
Judicial commissioner Azizan Arshad set the date after listening to the arguments from Chetan Jethwani, for the 4 assemblymen, and Surendra Ananth, representing the Penang country meeting and its speaker, Law Choo Kiang.
The 4 assemblymen are Zulkifli Ibrahim (Sungai Acheh), Afif Bahardin (Seberang Jaya), Khaliq Mehtab Ishaq (Bertam) and Zolkifly Lazim (Telok Bahang). All are participants of Bersatu.
Zulkifli and Afif had been sacked from PKR in 2020 and later joined Bersatu, whilst Khaliq and Zolkifly are participants of Bersatu.
They had filed writs towards the country meeting and the speaker in 2020 to task a movement calling for them to vacate their seats and for by-elections to be held.
At today’s listening to, Chetan contended that Article 14A of the Penang charter became invalid for being inconsistent with the Federal Constitution.
“Two of my customers had been brushed off from their celebration and the opposite are nevertheless withinside the celebration, so Article 14A need to now no longer apply,” he stated.
He stated the 4 assemblymen had represented Pakatan Harapan on the 2018 widespread election however it became now no longer registered as a political celebration.
However, Surendra argued the Federal Court had determined that the country meeting became entitled to enact laws to decide the qualification of its participants.
“The Federal Court had additionally dominated that Article 14A became now no longer void as it’s miles steady with Article 10 (1) (c) of the Federal Constitution,” he stated.
Article 14A says a country assemblyman ought to vacate his seat if he resigns or is expelled from the celebration he represented on the election.
Last Friday, the Federal Court brushed off the assemblymen’s packages for go away to task the competence of the country legislative meeting in passing an anti-hopping law.
