Sarawak National Party (Snap) deputy president Justine Jinggut said today that the party still has an avenue to appeal against its deregistration.

He said Snap would file an appeal in the Court of Appeal against the High Court's rejection of his application for an order of certiorari to quash the Registrar of Societies' (ROS) decision to de-register it, after consulting with party leaders and members.

"I am disappointed with the decision but that's life," Bernama quoted him as saying in Kuching.

He said the Kuala Lumpur High Court had allowed an interim stay of execution of the decision pending the filing of an application by their lawyers for a formal stay within two weeks.

In reaching the decision today, Court of Appeal judge Datuk Mohamed Raus Shariff (sitting as High Court judge) said the ROS was right to deregister Snap following its failure to produce evidence of settlement of a dispute within the party.

No evidence of settlement

The judge said the ROS was merely complying with the statutory provisions of the Societies Act 1966 when he cancelled the registration of Snap on the grounds that the party had failed to furnish him with evidence of settlement of dispute within the party.

On Nov 5, 2002, the ROS deregistered Snap following the party's failure to resolve its protracted leadership crisis since April that year after it held that the party had failed to give a reasonable answer as to why it should not be deregistered.

The deregistration led to the formation of the Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP), now a component of the state ruling coalition. All elected representatives of the deregistered Snap also joined the new party.