PETALING JAYA, July 31: The rejection of election petitions without reasonable excuse is just a legal ploy and an attempt to hide election fraud in this country.
PKR De Facto Leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim suggested for the judiciary body to consider the arguments from both parties that filed the election petitions in court rather than dismiss the petition on technical grounds alone.
He said that all election petitions submitted have no meaning now because the specially appointed judges do not want the petition to go to a hearing.
“I voiced our disappointment on the attitude of the specially appointed judges selected to handle this case that used small technical issues which are not reasonable. In my opinion, it is an attempt to fool the people.
“These petitions were dismissed because of small matters. I feel that the judges should review their legal education in order to respect principles of justice, rather than find excuses for the case to not be heard.
“The judges should provide space to hear all parties, then decide if it is true or not. But now, the space is being denied,” he said.
Prior to this, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) filed about 39 petitions against the results of the 13th General Election (GE-13).
On Monday, Anwar, who is also the Opposition Leader, urged the Chief Justice, Tun Ariffin Zakaria to intervene in the issue of the election petitions following the decision of the court to dismiss it without reasonable excuse.
He is also concerned with the dismissal of the election petitions, which is now in the tenth case on the technical grounds, when the court placed a high cost for each petition.
Among the petitions that received attention was the Balik Pulau case when the court ordered Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik to pay RM120,000 after filing a petition for the election results of the area.
For the Ketereh Parliament, the Kota Baharu Court ordered the petitioner, Ab Aziz Ab Kadir, to pay RM40,000 in costs to the first respondent, the Kota Baharu Member of PArliament, Tan Sri Annuar Musa and RM25,000 each to the second and third respondents.
For the Air Lanas State Legislative Assembly, the petitioner, Mustapha Deris was ordered to pay RM30,000 in costs to the Air Lanas Assemblyman, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed.
For the Kok Lanas State Legislative Assembly, petitioner, Shaberi Mohd Zain was ordered to pay RM30,000 to Assemblyman, Datuk Md Alwi Che Ahmad and RM25,000 each to the second and third respondents.