Sarawak National Party (Snap) president Edwin Dundang said today the Kuala Lumpur High Court verdict yesterday in dismissing the party's application to quash the Registrar of Societies' (ROS) decision in de-registering the party was 'a disappointed and bitter one.'

This was because the party's 120,000 members had been waiting for more than three years for a decision from the court to be in their favour, he told malaysiakini in a telephone interview from Miri.

Yesterday, party leaders and members were stunned when Justice Mohamed Rauf Shariff upheld the ROS' right to de-register the 43-year-old party in 2002 because of the party's failure to furnish evidence of a settlement to the dispute within the party.

Dundang ( right ), who took over as party president in 2003 from James Wong Kim Min, said he and his deputy Justine Jinggut, after consultation with other party leaders and members, had decided to take the matter to a higher level - the court of appeal.

Their lawyers were working on the appeal after the High Court yesterday granted a two-week interim stay to the order pending the filing of the application of the appeal.

Two more avenues

Dundang said the party wanted the court to address the issue of legality or otherwise or constitutionality or otherwise of the dispute within the party.

Calling on members to remain calm and patient, he said the party had only lost the first set and there would be two more sets ahead - the court of appeal and the Federal Court.

"Therefore, I don't call it (the High Court's decision) a defeat. We will exhaust all the avenues till the last game has been played" he added.

Dundang said he and other party leaders were buffled by the reasons given by the judge in rejecting the Snap's application for a judicial review of the ROS' decision.

According to lawyers, the appeal process could take years, and in the meantime if leave is granted to take the appeal to the higher court, a stay order will be granted to the High Court's latest decision.