The Kuala Lumpur High Court has today struck out a suit brought by two former PAS candidates for the Manong and Rungkup state constituencies, after it ruled that any bid to disqualify a candidate must be done through election petitions.

The two PAS candidates, Jamil Zulkarnain and Mohd Misbahul Munir Masduki, had filed the suit on the grounds that the BN assemblyperson for Manong, Mohamad Kamil Shafie, and Rungkup rep Shahrul Zaman Yahya, had allegedly violated Article 30 of the Perak constitution as they do not reside in the silver state.

However, Justice Zaleha Yusof allowed the BN candidates’ striking-out application in her chambers in ruling that any dispute on elections should be done through election petitions as stipulated under Article 118 of the federal constitution.

Furthermore, the two PAS candidates had also filed election petitions on the same matter and lost when they were heard, as well as on appeal.

“Hence, today the court has ordered the two PAS candidates to pay costs of RM5,000 each,” said lawyer Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin, representing the two BN winning candidates.

With today’s decision, Kamil and Shahrul Zaman retain their respective seats.

Jamil and Misbahul filed an originating summons against the two, claiming that the two BN assemblypersons had lived outside the state and the address in their identity cards proved they were non-Perak residents.

Article 30 of the Perak constitution states the state assemblyperson must be a resident of Perak at the time of the election.

Following this, the two PAS members wanted the court to declare that the BN representatives are disqualified to be members of the Perak assembly and restrain them from participating in assembly proceedings.

In their defence, the BN assemblypersons said that the disqualification must be done through election petitions.

Kamil and Shahrul Zaman won their seats by a narrow majority of 231 and 613 votes respectively.

Lawyer for Jamil and Misbahul, Robin Lim, said he would seek further instructions on whether to file an appeal.