Pakatan Rakyat has urged Chief Justice Zaki Azmi to set up a full bench of no less than nine members in the Federal Court in the soon-to-be-filed appeal by Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin in the MB vs MB case.

nizar banned from enter office 100209 nga kor ming “Our request for a five-member panel in Friday’s Court of Appeal hearing was not adhered to and instead a three-member panel was set up and ruled in favour of (BN Menteri Besar) Zambry (Abd Kadir),” lamented Perak DAP secretary Nga Kor Ming ( left ), who is both an assemblyperson and parliamentarian.

Ousted Perak MB Nizar’s lawyer Leong Cheok Keng will soon be filing the leave application against the Court of Appeal’s decision yesterday which declared Zambry as the legitimate Perak menteri besar.

Nga hopes this time around, the Federal Court - the country’s highest court - will “in its collective wisdom and as the guardian of the constitution” restore the judgment of High Court judge Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim.

The DAP politician, who is also a trained lawyer, argued that the bigger the panel of judges, the fairer the court decision.

High Court judge Abdul Rahim had two weeks ago recognised Nizar as the rightful MB but his decision was overturned yesterday by a three-member appellate court panel, which gave a five-minute oral judgment on the matter.

Where are the written judgments?

Nga also stressed that written judgments from the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court are essential for both Nizar and Perak state assembly speaker V Sivakumar to properly argue their cases.

“The Court of Appeal judge who granted the stay against Nizar from assuming the post of MB has not supplied his grounds for granting the stay,” he pointed out.

“Similarly, the other judges of the Federal Court who ruled against speaker Sivakumar in the other suits have also not written their grounds.

“To date, only justice Abdul Aziz has in his 78-page judgment gave details and explained the reason why he held that Zambry cannot be, and is not, legally the menteri besar of Perak.”

Nga also pointed out that the Court of Appeal judge who granted the stay against the High Court decision was a very junior judge.

“And to date, no explanation has been given as to why he had chosen to sit (alone).”

It is rare for a single judge in the Court of Appeal to hear such a case and subsequently grant a stay.