After 48 Segamat voters were granted leave last month to challenge the admission of 949 army personnel and their spouses as voters in an incomplete army camp there, the Election Commission today obtained a hearing date of their appeal against the challenge.

Following the first case management of the matter today, the hearing date has been fixed for Feb 27.

This was confirmed to Malaysiakini by Michelle Ng (left in photo), one of the lawyers representing the voters.

"We got a letter from the Court of Appeal yesterday, informing us that the AG's Chambers appeal (for EC) against the granting of leave by the High Court has been fixed for case management today," the lawyer said.

Counsel Gobind Singh Deo said a certificate of urgency was filed by the AG's Chambers for the appeal to be expedited.

"It is not unusual for this to happen but it leaves us with a short time to prepare the case with the long Chinese New Year holidays coming.

"We will take instructions from our clients (48 voters)," he said.

Initially, the court fixed Feb 27 to hear the appeal but the counsels were later called again for case management and then informed that the hearing has been brought forward to Feb 21.

The 48 voters - mainly from the DAP and Amanah - filed the judicial review application on Dec 17 last year, after the hearing of their objections in the local inquiry was dismissed by the EC.

The voters, aged between 32 and 74, filed the judicial review application to challenge the registration of voters at the new Segamat army camp, which will only be completed by April 2018.

Appeal to EC rejected

The voters had initially filed an objection with the EC at a local inquiry held in December last year but were overruled.

Their appeal to the EC was also rejected during a hearing conducted last week.

In their judicial review application, the voters sought to quash the EC's local inquiry decision.

They want the entry of the 949 names into the electoral roll to be declared as unconstitutional and are also seeking costs and any other orders deemed fit by the court.

On Jan 8, Justice Azizah Nawawi granted the voters leave (permission) for the judicial review application to be heard on its full merits after dismissing the preliminary objection from the AG's Chambers.

The judge also granted a stay on gazetting the 949 army voters and their spouses whose names were found in the third quarter of the electoral roll last year, until the disposal of the application.

The basis of the preliminary objection by the AG's Chambers is that the voters had not exhausted their legal avenues as their appeal to the local inquiry had yet to be heard by the EC.

However, their appeal to the EC was also dismissed five days before Justice Azizah's decision, resulting in her granting the leave.

In judicial review applications, leave has to be obtained by the applicants to ensure the court does not hear frivolous and vexatious applications.

Besides the 48 voters, another batch of six voters - mainly Segamat PKR members - had also filed a similar judicial review to challenge the entry of 102 voters, who are also from the army camp, into the voters' roll.

Their challenge, however, was dismissed last week by Justice Kamaludin Md Said.