The decision on Keadilan's suit against the Election Commission was reserved after the Attorney General made a preliminary objection in the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.

"The Attorney General's chambers represented by AG Abdul Gani Patail ( pix ) and Azahar Mohamad objected to Keadilan's application claiming that it was an abuse of the court process based on Article 118 of the Federal Constitution", according to a statement from Keadilan today.

Article 118 states that "No election to the House of Representatives or to the Legislative Assembly of a State shall be called in question except by an election petition presented to the high court having jurisdiction where the election was held."

This simply means, in order to question the validity of the election results, an election petition must be filed to the High Court instead of a law suit.

Keadilan, now registered as Parti Keadilan Rakyat, filed the suit on April 29 against the EC over alleged "illegalities" discovered during the general election this year.

Judicial Commissioner Wan Afrah Wan Ibrahim will make a decision on the AG's preliminary objection on July 1 after the AG had argued that the ruling here would affect other election petitions before the courts.

"The AG suggested that the issues raised were imaginary and the application academic in nature" the statement read.

In their application, Keadilan called on the court to review the overall conduct of the elections, which it claimed was mired with many cases of blatant and rampant irregularities.

The party also claimed, among others, that the EC had violated many sections of the election laws by unilaterally changing the rules halfway through the elections held on March 21.

Premature arguments

The statement also said that the party's counsel R Sivarasa had argued that Article 118, read together with the Election Offences Act, showed clearly that only an applicant seeking to void a particular election in a particular constituency was required to file an election petition.

He went on: "Here there was no request to void any particular election or candidate, the purpose was simply to obtain declarations that certain acts and decisions of the EC during the last election were in violation of the law so that it won't be repeated."

The AG was therefore deemed wrong in his premise for objection, said Sivarasa pointing out that the application was brought in the interest of the public and to safeguard democracy in the country.

The AG should be supporting the application, asserted Malik Imtiaz, Keadilan's other counsel, because the issues raised were serious and important and that all political parties had a direct interest in the issues raised.

The AG insisted that "the court is not here to define the law for the purpose of learning the law". He argued that the effect of the declaration sought would affect the recent general election and ran foul of the article.

Responding to this, Sivarasa replied that any argument now on the declarations affecting the general election was quite premature since the declarations were not yet given.

He further pointed out that "the EC is not above the law in its actions and was subject to judicial review."

Calls

have been made for a credible and open review of EC following the inefficacies and blunders that surfaced during the March elections.