SYED SADDIQ, THREE MUAR VOTERS GET LEAVE TO APPEAL IN CONSTITUENCY FUND CASE

PUTRAJAYA, March 10 (Bernama) -- Muar member of parliament Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and three voters in his constituency can proceed with their appeal in the Federal Court to challenge the lower court’s refusal to grant them leave to commence a judicial review over the government’s decision to stop the allocation intended for his constituency.

This follows a decision today by the Federal Court three-man bench comprising Datuk Nordin Hassan, Datuk Lee Swee Seng and Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah to allow their application for leave to proceed with an appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal, which decided against them.

Justice Nordin said Syed Saddiq has fulfilled the threshold requirement under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964.

Under the law, litigants wishing to appeal a Court of Appeal’s decision in a civil case must obtain leave from the Federal Court.

The court permitted three legal questions to be argued in the substantive appeal. One of the questions is where allocation for a parliamentary constituency towards a Member of Parliament has been withdrawn or denied, are such decisions amenable to judicial review on the basis of breach of the right to equality guaranteed under Article 8 (1) of the Federal Constitution and a breach of the doctrine of separation of powers and/or mala fide?

On April 23, 2024, Syed Saddiq, Najib Abu Nawar, Mohd Bakirudin Abdullah and Muhamad Fadzly Bisri filed an application seeking for leave to commence a judicial review to quash the government’s decision to withhold RM500,000 from a total of RM1.7 million that was supposed to be directly channelled to the bank account of the Muar Parliamentary Service Centre for welfare, community well-being, and disaster relief programmes.

They named the Prime Minister and the Malaysian Government as respondents.

Additionally, they are seeking the court to reinstate Syed Saddiq's access to the myKHAS system, which manages the RM2 million development fund for the constituency, and overturn the decision to cancel several projects worth RM230,300 that were approved through the system.

The applicants also challenged the respondents' refusal to approve or allocate any funds to Syed Saddiq, as the MP for Muar, for programmes under the 'Projek Mesra Rakyat' or similar initiatives for 2024.

They contended that the respondents violated Syed Saddiq's right to equality as an MP for Muar, as well as the rights of the three other applicants as voters in the constituency, as enshrined under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution.

On Dec 24, 2024, the High Court dismissed Syed Saddiq and the three voters’ application, and the Court of Appeal dismissed their appeal on Oct 27 last year.

In the proceedings today, Lawyer Lim Wei Jiet represented Syed Saddiq and the three voters while Senior Federal Counsel Nurhafizza Azizan represented the Prime Minister and the Malaysian Government.

-- BERNAMA