The High Court in Kuala Lumpur today allowed the referral of three constitutional questions to the Federal Court posed by four accused charged under the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA) 2012 for participating in the Kita Lawan rally last year.

They are Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah, its steering committee member Mandeep Singh, Jingga 13 activist Mohd Fariz Musa and Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin.

The application was approved by Judicial Commissioner Nordin Hassan, who also allowed the bid by activist Adam Adli yesterday to pose constitutional questions on the PAA.

The three questions are:-

  1. whether Section 4(1)(c) and Section 4(2)(c) of the PAA 2012, read together with the definition of street protests in Section 3, is ultra vires (beyond the powers) of Article 10 and read together with Article 5;
     
  2. whether the definition of assembly read together with the definition of street protest under Section 3 of the PAA, creates a legal anomaly which results in it to be against Article 5, 8 and 10 of the Federal Constitution; and
     
  3. whether Section 4(1)(d) and 4(2)(c) of the PAA is against Article 10(1)(b) of the Federal Constitution.

Article 5 concerns liberty of a person, Article 8 on equality before the law, while Article 10 is regarding freedom of speech and expression.

All the four accused were represented by Gooi Hsiao Leung, who is also Alor Setar MP, Amer Hamzah Arshad and Ariana Ong.

The prosecution was represented by DPP Wan Shaharuddin Wan Laden.

Sim described the referral to the Federal Court, the highest court in the country, as a small victory and said "we have always questioned the relevance of the law which was supposed to allow and encourage peaceful assembly but now being used to suppress freedom of assembly".

Maria and Sim were among nine charged in September last year under the PAA 2012 for taking part in the Kita Lawan rallies between Feb 28 and March 28.

Yesterday, it was reported that Adam Adli and Mohd Fariz Abd Talib obtained leave to have similar questions posed before the apex court.