Court dismisses Selangor govt's appeal in case against EC (Updated)

PUTRAJAYA: The Selangor state government today failed in its last bid to obtain documents pertaining to 136, 272 voters in the delimitation exercise, from the Election Commission (EC).
This follows the Federeal Court's dismissal of an application for leave to appeal over an application for discovery of documents and to cross-examine the chairman of Election Commission.
Chief Justice Tan Sri Raus Shariff, who sat with judges Tan Sri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin and Tan Sri Aziah Ali, said the decision was unanimous.
He said leave is only granted if the questions raised are a novel issue and of public importance.
He made the order on grounds that the Selangor government did not fulfill the requirement under Section 96(a) of the Courts of Judicature Act for their application to be heard.
"There is no circumstances to justify the granting of leave for the questions (which was put forward by the applicant). We find that there is no novel issue, arising from the proposed questions," said Raus.
Raus said the threshold of section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 cannot be met. There is no order as to the cost.
The state government had filed a judicial review on Oct 19, 2016 against EC and two others, EC's chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah and Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh, in relation to actions taken in the delimitation exercise affecting the state of Selangor.
The government sought for an order to quash a notice under Section 4 of the 'Thirteenth Schedule' to the Federal Constitution, titled "proposed recommendation for Federal and State constituencies in the states of Malaya", dated Sept 15, 2016.
The state government also sought for an order to compel the EC to publish a new notice and new recommendations, which complies with the Thirteenth Schedule.n.