Bar Goes To Apex Court To Reverse Ruling On Validity Of 2020 Emergency Proclamation

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On Nov 28, the Court of Appeal dismissed the Malaysian Bar’s appeal to refer constitutional questions on the validity of the emergency proclamation to the Federal Court.PUTRAJAYA: The Malaysian Bar is seeking the Federal Court’s leave to reverse a Court of Appeal ruling concerning the validity of the emergency proclamation made in 2020.
To succeed, the Bar must satisfy the court that there are novel constitutional or legal questions of public importance raised for the first time, as required under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964.
The Bar’s lawyer, Abdul Rashid Ismail, said it had filed 32 questions of law with the court registry last week.
He said the Bar is waiting for the registry to fix a date to hear the leave application.
On Nov 28, a three-member Court of Appeal bench dismissed the Bar’s appeal to refer constitutional questions to the apex court on the validity of the emergency proclamation.
Justice Azizul Adnan Azmi, who delivered the broad grounds of judgment, said the bench was bound by an earlier decision, made by another panel of the court on Oct 12 last year, disallowing a similar appeal by Bersih.
“That bench came to a finding that there was no appealable error by the High Court, and accordingly dismissed the appeal,” he said.
The court noted that both the present appeal and the parallel one filed by Bersih emanated from the same High Court judgment, but were heard by two different panels.
On May 18 last year, Justice Ahmad Kamal Shahid of the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed the applications filed by both the Bar and Bersih to refer a total of 34 constitutional questions to the Federal Court.
Kamal said he would instead hear and decide on all legal questions posed by both applications himself.
The Bar had earlier raised 27 questions of law on the validity of the proclamation made under the Emergency Ordinance, while Bersih’s application posed another seven questions.
The emergency proclamation, issued to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic which began in early 2020, was effective from Jan 12 to Aug 1, 2021.
Former Sungai Petani MP and current Dewan Rakyat Speaker Johari Abdul, Pasir Gudang MP Hassan Karim and Tebing Tinggi assemblyman Abdul Aziz Bari, who was in the opposition, secured the Federal Court’s leave on May 25 last year to challenge another Court of Appeal decision on a similar subject matter.
FMT understands that a date to hear the trio’s appeal will be fixed only after the Bar’s leave application has been disposed of.
Johari, Hassan, Aziz and the Bar have all named former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and the government as respondents in their suits. - FMT

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