Bersih disappointed by Court of Appeal decision to allow delineation in Selangor

PETALING JAYA: The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih 2.0) is disappointed with the Court of Appeal's decision to allow the Election Commission (EC) to proceed with the execution of local enquiries for parliamentary and state constituencies in Selangor, setting aside the decision by the High Court.
"Despite the ample time for the EC to complete its delineation exercise, the EC has chosen to propel the cases on redelineation forward despite significant objections on grounds of missing addresses, malapportionment, gerrymandering to name a few," its electoral watchdog chairman Maria Chin Abdullah said in statement today.
She added that there may be detrimental results should the EC proceed to hold local enquiries without establishing the concerns addressed in the objections in court.
"(This includes) waste of government resources, failure to take into account electoral best practices and respect for the right of the voters."
She further reminded that the EC and the courts are avenues of justice and recourse to address errors and wrongs in electoral matters.
"As such, it is the role of the EC and all government bodies to respect, uphold and protect the interest and rights of the voter," she said.
She was responding after the Court of Appeal had allowed the application by the EC to lift the High Court's stay order to conduct local enquiries over its present redelineation exercise in Selangor.
The three-member bench led by Tan Sri Idris Harun said the majority decision was taken after it had found merits in the application made by the EC, while judge Datuk Rhodzariah Bujang gave a dissenting judgement in favour of the Selangor government.
On Dec 7, High Court judge Azizul Azmi Adnan ruled against the state government in its bid to have EC's redelineation declared unconstitutional.