The Court of Appeal today struck out the application by Sabah politician Harris Salleh to stop former state chief minister Yong Teck Lee from challenging an election petition ruling.

Harris' lawyer Ansari Abdullah told malaysiakini that the Court of Appeal struck out the case this morning after he (Ansari) withdrew the motion with the liberty to reapply.

Former Parti Bersekutu president Harris had used legal means to stop a High Court order that had allowed Yong to challenge the Elections Court's decision which found Yong guilty of committing election offences.

On June 8, the Elections Court had ruled that Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp) president Yong had committed offences under Elections Offences Act and used it as grounds to declare the Likas state seat as invalid. Yong was the Likas state assemblyman.

Yong managed to get a stay of that decision pending his appeal against the ruling. Harris then filed his application to stop Yong from proceeding in that matter.

'A shortcut'

Bernama reported that the Court of Appeal, comprising of Justices Shaik Daud Mohd Ismail, Mohamad Saari Yusoff and Abdul Kadir Sulaiman, had said that the proper procedure for Harris was to file the motion through the High Court.

"We don't want to set a precedent ... otherwise in future every litigant will use this as a shortcut," said Justice Shaik Daud.

On July 4, High Court Justice Richard Malanjum granted Yong a stay of execution of Justice Muhammad Kamil Awang's ruling that Yong had committed an offence under Election Offences Act 1954 during the 1999 state elections.

Ansari said that he had already filed an application in the High Court together with a certificate of urgency. The court has yet to fix a date to hear the application.

"If the High Court rejects our case, we are going to reapply to the Court of Appeal," said Ansari.