After almost a year, lawyers for PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim and the Attorney-General's Chambers have finally agreed to refer one question of law regarding his challenge on the justiciability of the Pardons Board's decision to the Federal Court.

Anwar's challenge relates to the Pardons Board's decision to reject the application to have him pardoned, where he is serving a five-year jail sentence for sodomy.

Today's development was disclosed by Anwar's lawyer Shahid Adli Kamarudin after the case management before Justice Azizah Nawawi at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur today.

“Parties finally agreed on the question to be posed and we informed the judge,” Shahid said after appearing from the judge's chambers.

Senior federal counsel Natrah Idris acted for the board.

Following this, the High Court fixed Feb 28 for another case management.

The AGC, which appeared for the Pardons Board, wrote in a letter dated Nov 21 agreeing to the question.

The question of law posed is “whether the Pardons Board constituted under Article 42(11) of the Federal Constitution, read together with Article 40 (1A), is subject to judicial review".

On Jan 18, a three-member Court of Appeal panel led by Justice Rohana Yusof granted Anwar's appeal to refer one question of law regarding the issue of justiciability of the Pardons Board's decision to the Federal Court.

Justice Rohana ruled that the High Court judge had erred in not referring the question to the apex court. 

“We have given due consideration to the written and oral submission and we find the real question posed is not Article 42(11) but whether Article 42(11) is to be read together with Article 40(1A).

"We agree with the appellant (Anwar) that Juraimi Hassan's case had not considered Article 40(1A), bearing in mind the article (in the Federal Constitution) had been in force in 1994,” the appellate court judge had said.

Anwar is scheduled to be released sometime in July next year.