Lawyers for Liberty is appalled by a Magistrate Court order banning 16 individuals from participating in a planned protest on May 1 in Kota Kinabalu.

The NGO's executive director Eric Paulsen said the order obtained by Sabah police is unlawful and ultra vires and that similar orders in the past had been thrown out.

"Such an order was set aside and declared unlawful by the Court of Appeal in January 2014 when Azmin Ali and Badrul Hisham challenged such an order which purportedly barred them from participating in the Bersih 3.0 rally in 2012," he said in a statement today.

Therefore, Paulsen ( left ) said Kota Kinabalu police chief M Chandran should not feign ignorance of such precedence when he sought the court order in a bid to block the protest.

The protest is organised by Bersih to highlight issues of illegal immigrants and land rights.

Furthermore, he said Section 9(5) of the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA) which criminalises protests without a 10-day notice with a fine up to RM10,000 has also been declared unconstitutional and is null and void.

As such, he said the protest organiser's failure to obtain approval from the Kota Kinabalu CIty Hall to use Pandang Merdeka for the rally cannot be grounds for an outright ban.

At most, he said it would be a minor offence under local government rules.

Questionable court orders

"None of these minor offences empower the police or the Magistrate’s Court (which is an inferior court) to pre-empt and declare any rally as illegal under the Criminal Procedure Code, PAA, Penal Code or any other laws.

"The police cannot pick and choose the laws they want to enforce or ignore superior court decisions they disagree with while at the same time, they surreptitiously go to magistrates and obtain questionable court orders which are surely ultra vires," he said.

Paulsen called the court order "shockingly wide and arbitrary" as the ban covers five areas in Kota Kinabalu and is in effect from April 27 to May 3 even though the protest is only for two hours on May 1 at Padang Merdeka.

It was reported today the notices of the ban have been put up at Padang Merdeka, Dataran Bandaraya, City Park, Segama Waterfront and Taman Chong Tien Vun.

Among those banned from the protest in the court order are DAP's Kota Kinabalu Jimmy Wong and Kapayan state assemblyperson Edwin Bosi, PKR's Penampang MP Darrel Leiking and STAR's Bingkor state assemblyperson Jeffrey Kittingan.