Court of Appeal still hasn’t delivered written judgment

By Zedeck Siew
thenutgraph.com

KUALA LUMPUR, 17 June 2009: The Court of Appeal still hasn't made available its written judgment to Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin's legal team even though it has been three-and-a-half weeks since the appellate court ruled that Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir was the legitimate Perak menteri besar (MB).

In the meantime, the window of opportunity for Nizar to apply for leave to appeal against the Court of Appeal's 22 May 2009 decision is fast coming to an end since he only has 30 days to do so.

Nizar told a press conference in Parliament today that his legal team would be filing for leave to appeal this week in any case because his time was running out.

"They (the Court of Appeal judges) only gave us a five-minute oral judgement on 22 May," Nizar said.

"I have difficulties in reading what was on the mind of the judges," Nizar said, expressing his frustrations at how he may be thwarted in appealing to the Federal Court.

Nizar's lawyer Sulaiman Abdullah had previously said that his legal team needed the written judgement in order to request leave from the Federal Court to file an appeal.

The Court of Appeal's written judgement is usually needed so that the grounds of appeal can be spelt out for the Federal Court to consider.

After announcing the Court of Appeal's decision on 22 May, judge Datuk Md Raus Shariff had said he would try to expedite the written judgement in seven days in response to a request of urgency by Nizar's lawyer.

Cases moving from the Court of Appeal to the higher court do not get automatic right of appeal. Leave must first be applied and granted before an appeal will be heard at the Federal Court.

On 22 May, the Court of Appeal found that Sultan Azlan Shah was right in swearing in Zambry as the Perak MB, effectively setting aside an 11 May High Court decision that declared Nizar as the legitimate MB. The High Court also ruled that a no-confidence motion in the legislative assembly was the only way to decide if he had the majority's confidence.

On 15 June, Nizar, the newly sworn-in Bukit Gantang Member of Parliament (MP), led Opposition MPs in shouts calling for the dissolution of the Perak state assembly.

Seven MPs, including Nizar, were suspended for two days by speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, after they refused to remove headbands saying "Bubar DUN!!".

Nizar returned to the Dewan Rakyat today after his two-day suspension ended.

Commenting on his actions on the first day of the Dewan Rakyat's sitting, Nizar said that the shouts in the house were "spontaneous".