Court declares assembly illegal

IPOH, March 3 — By Shannon Teoh - Malaysianinsider

Ipoh Barat MP M. Kula Segaran, showing a letter directed to the Ipoh High Court stating that V Sivakumar had not authorised the state legal advisor to act on the Perak Assembly Speaker’s behalf. — pic by Choo Choy May

The High Court here has declared as illegal this morning’s emergency sitting of the Perak state assembly which was held on a street under a tree.

The court granted the order restraining Speaker V Sivakumar from convening meetings “purporting to be meetings of the Perak legislative assembly” after accepting arguments that the immunity from judicial review stated in the federal constitution was only for proceedings in the state assembly.

After listening in chambers to lawyers representing Perak Menteri Besar Datuk Zambry Abd Kadir and his executive council and the assistant state legal advisor Zulkarnain Hassan for two hours, Judicial Commissioner Ridwan Ibrahim granted the order at 5pm under Section 44 of the Specific Relief Act which grants the court the power to make orders to a public official.

The order is for an indefinite period of time.

When asked by reporters, Zambry’s lead counsel Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin said that the issue of a time did not arise as the speaker had no power to call for a sitting of the assembly as only the Sultan was authorised to do so under Article 36(1) of the Perak Constitution.

“There was no royal consent, so the meeting under the tree, remains just a meeting under the tree,” added Datuk Hafarizam Harun, Umno’s legal advisor, who is also part of the executive council’s legal team.

Earlier today Perak Speaker V Sivakumar convened an emergency sitting of the state assembly which effectively voted to end Zambry’s de facto Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

The court’s declaration was the latest development on an eventful day in which Perak’s administration was thrown into chaos with both BN and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) questioning the legitimacy of each other’s actions.

The State Secretary had earlier directed the closure of the building which houses the state assembly venue.

This morning, the same court had ruled that five lawyers, including constitutional expert Tommy Thomas, had no locus standi to represent the Perak Speaker in court.

The judge said the Speaker must be represented by the state legal advisor because he is part of the state government.

Firoz and Hafarizam however, refused to comment on the letter sent to Ridwan earlier whereby Sivakumar stated that he had not authorised nor communicated with the state legal advisor on this case as it “was not given to us.”

Sivakumar was represented in this afternoon’s proceedings by Zulkarnain, who insisted that there was no conflict of interest, despite the fact that the state legal advisor is defending Zambry in the ongoing case in the Kuala Lumpur High Court, where the legality of his appointment as menteri besar is being questioned.

“We are looking after the interests of the government. Our duty as legal advisors is to advice the government,” he said.

However, he said that “I cannot recall” when pressed on who had raised the preliminary objection to the team of lawyers initially appointed by Sivakumar.

A statement by Thomas, who was the lead counsel for Sivakumar, had claimed that the complainant had raised the objection but it was supported by Zulkarnain.

A hearing date will be set by the court on March 5, which is also the day that the three independents who left Pakatan Rakyat and now support Barisan Nasional, will go to court to quash the speaker’s decision to consider their state assembly seats vacant.

Given today’s ruling, it is likely that Sivakumar will once again be represented by the state legal advisor.