Three Kuantan residents today were ordered to pay RM60,000 in costs to the Science, Technology and Innovations Ministry (Mosti), the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB), Lynas Australia and Lynas Malaysia.

Judge Mariana Yahya dismissed with costs the two sets of judicial reviews in the High Court in Kuantan this morning.

The applicants had filed the judicial reviews against the approval of the temporary operating licence (TOL) for the rare earths mining company.

Gene Anand Vendargon, the lawyer representing Save Malaysia, Stop Lynas (Stop Lynas) chairperson Tan Bun Teet and the other two residents, Syed Talib Syed Sulaiman and Hasimah Ramli, said that he will soon meet his clients to discuss the next course of action.

“If they want to appeal to the Court of Appeal, we may have to file an appeal within one month,” Gene told Malaysiakini .

He said the judge had dismissed the first set of judicial review because his clients did not exhaust their domestic remedy under the Atomic Energy Licensing Act.

There is a provision under the Act for a dissatisfied party to appeal to the minister, he said.

“The applicants didn’t go before the minister (then Mosti minister Maximus Ongkili); they went straight to court. So she dismissed the judicial review brought to court on the basis that they should have gone to the minister first," Gene said.

Minister followed procedure

As for the second judicial review, Gene said his clients had gone before the minister, but the grounds raised in the second judicial review were that the minister was “biased”.

“That ground was not accepted by the judge because she was of the view that the minister had followed all the proper procedures when he heard the appeal.

The lawyer added that the judge had also relied on how his clients had applied to challenge the TOL which was granted to Lynas.

The TOL has since expired last year and Lynas was granted a Full Operating State Licence.

“The judge said our challenge on TOL is academic, because that (the TOL) doesn’t exist anymore. What exists now is the full licence.

“Our submission was, of course, that the TOL shouldn’t have been granted in the first place. If it was not granted, there would no way they could have (been) granted the full licence.

“But that argument was not accepted by the judge,” Gene said.

Stop Lynas had continuously urged the government not to consider Lynas’ application for a permanent operating licence, citing that the mining company’s financial problems would leave behind a “toxic legacy” for future generations.

Apart from being unable to comply with the requirements of the TOL, anti-Lynas NGOs are also worried that the possible foreclosure of Lynas may leave toxic disposed in Kuantan.