Appeals Court allows redelineation to continue in Selangor (Updated)

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has allowed the application by the Election Commission (EC) to set aside the High Court's stay order to conduct a local inquiry over its present redelineation exercise in Selangor.
The three-member bench led by Tan Sri Idrus Harun said the majority decision was taken after it had found merits in the application made by the EC.
Court of Appeal judge Datuk Yaacob Md Sam agreed with the decision while judge Datuk Rhodzariah Bujang gave a dissenting judgement in favour of the Selangor government.
On Dec 7, High Court judge Azizul Azmi Adnan had ruled against the state government in its bid to have EC's redelineation declared unconstitutional.
However, Azmi also granted a stay order applied by the Selangor government to prevent the EC from conducting local enquiries which is part of the redelineation process.
The order had prevented the EC from holding a local inquiry into the objections raised towards the redelineation exercise in Selangor.
The stay order was supposed to be in place until the Selangor government exhausted all forms of appeal for the judicial review against the EC's redelineation exercise in the state at the courts.
The Selangor government had filed the judicial review on Oct 19 last year, naming the EC, its chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah and secretary Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh as respondents.
It wanted the court to quash the EC's notice and to direct it to publish a fresh notice on the proposed exercise.
The state government also wanted a declaration that the notice was lacking in details, leading to voters, local authorities or the state government being unable to exercise their constitutional right to file representations.
The challenge was based on claims that the EC acted unconstitutionally in the redelineation exercise by using a defective electoral roll.
Following the failure to obtain the stay order, Selangor state exectuive councillor Elizabeth Wong said the state goverment will continue their appeal for the judicial review at the Court of Appeal.
Senior federal counsel Datuk Amarjeet Singh acted for the EC, while lawyer Datuk S. Ambiga and Latheefa Koya represented the state government.
During the submission, Amarjeet had said the stay order granted by the High Court had affected the EC's tasks to perform its constitutionally mandated duty with 111 local inquiries in Selangor yet to be held.
He said should the EC proceed with the first round of local inquiries, it would not prevent other parties from filing a judicial review as well.
The EC had commenced its redelineation process in September 2016 and must complete the process by September of next year, while The 14th General Election must be called by next August as required under the federal Constitution.