Several Pakatan Harapan leaders today filed a suit against the Registrar of Societies (ROS) for its failure to respond to their application to be registered as a formal coalition ahead of the 14th general election.

Lawyer Gobind Singh Deo told reporters that the civil suit was filed by five Harapan leaders, namely chief secretary Saifuddin Abdullah, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution, Bersatu secretary-general Shaharuddin Md Salleh, and Amanah assistant secretary Abang Ahmad Kerdee Abang Masagus.

"In brief, we filed an application for various orders.

"In particular, our contention is that the ROS must reply or respond to our application (for registration).

"There has been no response until now. We take the view that as a creature of a statute, the ROS is duty bound to consider applications of this nature," Gobind, who is also the DAP legal bureau chief, said at the Jalan Duta court complex in Kuala Lumpur today. 

Also present were the five Harapan leaders who filed the suit.

The ROS is the sole respondent in the suit.

Among others, the defendants are seeking for the court to issue a declaration that the ROS' failure to respond to their application was a breach of its statutory duties, as well as going against their "legitimate expectation" for a response.

Further, they are also seeking the court to issue an order to compel the ROS to register Harapan as a formal coalition under the Societies Act 1966.

Compliance with all regulations

Gobind also said that as far as Harapan parties are concerned, they have complied with all the regulations set out by the ROS in order to be registered as a formal coalition.

"An AGM has been done and the report has been sent to the ROS.

"To my understanding, going by the Societies Act, once a political party has compiled its constitutional requirements, by operations of law they are legitimate and they exist," he said.

"As far as we (Harapan) are concerned there is no reason for the ROS to withhold our application," he stressed.

Harapan had earlier this month revealed that the coalition had submitted an official letter to the ROS, which was addressed to its director-general Suriyati Ibrahim.

In the letter, it cited a Nov 20 meeting with Suriyati, during which Harapan was told that its application could not be processed because the ROS was still awaiting a report from the Bersatu annual general meeting and the party's annual returns, as well as DAP's central executive committee (CEC) re-election report.

The ROS had at the time recognised DAP's re-election, thus Harapan had said it was time the registrar also recognise Bersatu as a registered body.