Opposition party PKR today filed for an order from  the Kuala Lumpur High Court to prohibit the Registrar of Societies (ROS) from carrying on with its implied threat , in a letter, to deregister the political party.

NONE “This is because the ROS letter is illegal and invalid,” party vice-president N Surendran ( right ) said when met at the Kuala Lumpur courthouse lobby.

The application also seeks a stay of all proceedings pursuant to the matter, pending the granting of the court’s leave and subsequent judicial review of the regulator’s action.

The move comes in the footsteps of a letter from ROS dated May 9, which threatened to deregister the PKR for wrongfully dismissing a member, citing that it went against article 32.2.1 of the party's constitution.

However, Surendran and the party are disputing the ROS letter. They had replied to the government body within days of its receipt, and to date the body has not made any other move.

“There is no such provision in our constitution and there is no such member as named in the ROS letter,” he added, explaining that the same reasons were enumerated in the application filed today.

'Hidden motives of a desperate Umno-BN'

Surendran related PKR’s fears that the ROS was being used by the ruling BN coalition to destabilise the opposition prior to a soon-to-be-called snap election blitzkrieg.

“This is an ill-intentioned move, with hidden motives of a desperate Umno-BN,” he claimed.

He likened the move to methods employed by totalitarian regimes to silence dissent.

“This involves the stunting of the democratic process. It is the same tactic used by Burma’s military junta, which outlawed Aung San Suu-kyi’s National League for Democracy, and the apartheid regime that outlawed Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.”

The lawyer warned that this move by the government was directly in the eye of the international press and may impinge upon Malaysia’s global image.

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