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EC’s electoral boundary redrawing not subject to legal challenge, says Court of Appeal

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PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal said courts cannot interfere in the duties and functions of the Election Commission (EC) in redrawing electoral boundaries. Justice Kamardin Hashim said the election commissioners and their subordinate officers were entrusted under the Federal Constitution to complete the delineation exercise within a two year period. Kamardin said the action of two appellants to challenge the delineation process was, therefore, premature as the EC only made suggestions to parliament. “In our view, the appellants brought their fight to the wrong ring,” he said in the judgment which dismissed the appeal of Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran and Ipoh Timor MP Thomas Su Keong Siong. It will now be interesting to see the outcome of a similar challenge mounted by the Selangor government against the EC when hearing of that case resumes on Oct 13. On Aug 14, the three-man bench, which had been chaired by Mohd Zawawi Hashim, delivered an oral ruling that the court was n
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Set up a special task force to investigate the injuries sustained to Baskar while he was in police custody

Early this morning one Baskar Rao a 47-year-old security guard went to the Jelapang police station to lodge a police report. The report was as regards a break in into the place he was the security guard. Unfortunately, the police apparently refused to accept his report. Thus, with an ensuing tussle, he was handcuffed. But in the process, somehow due to the police, Baskar apparently decided to commit suicide and he lighted fire when he had some “substance” all over his body which caught fire. In the process, he was severely burnt all this took place about 1-2am this morning in the Jelapang police compound. And now has been admitted to the General Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun in Ipoh. As the incident happened while he was with handcuff he is considered to be in “police custody”. His family member one R.Adhi Lakshmi a/p P.Rajagopal, 54, has lodged a police report and the case is been investigated by Insp Firdaus. The police Department owes an explanation as to what ac
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Ex pub employee sued for allegedly defaming her employers for spreading "lies".

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A young girl working in a pub as a bar attendant is being sued by the Employers of the pub for defamation. The pub was hiring young girls the age ranging around 18-25 years old and agreed to pay their employees in the following manner: (i) That the salary is depended on the beer sold per day (ii) That the employee cannot exceed as much of weight (iii) The employee must reside in the hostel with the other employees and during the stay is not allowed to leave the hostel. The condition of the hostel was very harsh and also restrictive which cause her to flee and escape the hostel. Subsequently, she lodged a police report with her father. In the police report stated that the defamation suit raised by the employer against the young girl was due to the police report which was made to the newspaper and media and since it has affected the business of the pub. They said the defamatory remarks which were published in the newspapers can be seen as followed: (i)      8
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Investors Cheated in Money Game investment

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They trusted a friend and ended up losing RM100,000 published in Star Newspaper on Wednesday, 5/7/2017   IPOH: Five investors trusted their friend who introduced them to a money game scheme.But that trust turned into bad luck when the five friends lost about RM100,000 of their hard-earned money. One of them, Chin Soo Mee, 47, said she had invested RM10,000 after her former boss approached her to invest in the scheme. Chin, a single mother, and an office administrator said she deci­ded to join as her 19-year-old daughter was still in college and she wanted the extra income from the scheme’s monthly returns. All five of them invested in the scheme in December last year, and they were promised 10% monthly returns from January this year. “We realized something was wrong when we failed to get our returns for January, February, and March. “The company’s website stated that it had US$1.6mil (RM6.8mil) in its account. But when we checked the website in February
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Constitutional Law

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Mdm Vigneswary Murugaiah, a well-known Tamil writer, who frequently writes about the plight of poor Tamilians all around the world, was arrested on the 16 th   of December 2015 for allegedly smuggling a migrant under Section 26A of the Anti-Trafficking In Persons & Smuggling Of Migrants Act 2007.             However, about 1 year after she was charged, the Prosecution suddenly brought in 2 depositions as evidence pursuant to Section 61A of the Act. This allows deposition to be taken with or without the presence of the accused and it is prima facie evidence.             This is totally unfair and unconstitutional as it deprives Vigneswary of her right to a fair trial as she will not be accorded to opportunity to cross-examine the person who allegedly did the ‘deposition’. To make things worse, we were already lawyers on record but yet the prosecution did not notify us about the deposition taking place.             Thus, we have filed a constitutional challenge in f
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Criminal Law

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Teacher 38 years charged under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly forwarding leaked UPSR exam questions( primary 6 exam questions).   He has been charged for 5 offences and for each charge if found guilty he could be liable to be jailed for a minimum of 1 year to a maximum of 7 years!! Teacher had apparently received the alleged questions in September 2014 and it forwarded via WhasApp to groups.  The Government Multi-Media Ministry expert had said in evidence he could not rule out that the messages that was allegedly forwarded could be the work done by spyware or by other means. We won his case and his Defense was not called in the Sessions and High Court. But unfortunately by a majority decision 2-1 the Court Of Appeal judges ordered the teacher to enter his defense. Today the case came up in the Seremban Sessions Court and the teacher said he will give evidence under oath. Court fixed a continued Hearing date in August as we are awaiting the written decisi
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Employment Law

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Company employs a person as a lorry driver some 10 years ago. Company has more than 10 lorries and 20 drivers. Overall company has about 300 workers. Company agreed with lorry driver to pay 9 hours overtime when ever lorry driver makes an outstation trip to JB or Butterworth. Employee agrees to this. Employer also pays in addition trip allowance, overnight allowance and return trip allowance and occasional yearly bonus( extra perks) which is more than the overtime claim per trip. Now employee files a case against employer after he retires as a workman and claims for overtime for 6 years totaling about RM100k. Employee gives evidence in court today to support his claim. Case heard in Labor Court and which has been fixed for continued Hearing next month. Employer very upset although as he has taken too good care of workers like providing the extra perks and even a co-driver this particular employee has filed this unwarranted case. So far case going on fine for employe
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Ampang Pomelo Farmers

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The current farmers and their forefathers and siblings have been harvesting the land for more than 70 years. Since the 1940’s, there has been no problems of them occupying the land from the government. Since the 1980’s they actually were encouraged to apply for alienation of the said land from the state government. The farmers were given Temporary Occupational Licenses (TOL) to harvest the land. Subsequently, they followed all procedures by the state government to alienate the land to their names until 2015. Suddenly, they received a letter from the Land Office that their applications have been rejected because the said land has been alienated to an earlier applicant. This shocked the farmers who all this while have diligently been applying and following all procedures that were advised to them by the Land Office. The new owners have now filed a suit to evict these poor farmers from the said land albeit they have been there for about 70 years. We are helping the far
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Member of Parliament challenges the constitutionality of Section 9(1) of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012

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On 14.10.2016, Thomas Su the MP for Ipoh Timur was charged under Section 9(1) and punishable under Section 9(5) of Peaceful Assembly Act 2012. Thomas Su was charged for the same offence in 2013 and subsequently the prosecution withdraw the charge. Now, since the Government has a lot of free time and a lot of resources to dispense with, they decided to charge Thomas Su for the same offence again. After perusing the charge, the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 and our Federal Constitution we are of the opinion that particularly Section 9(1) and Section 9(5) of the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 is unconstitutional. Thus, we have filed an application pursuant to Section 30 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 to refer the constitutionality of this section to the High Court and subsequently to the Federal Court pursuant to Section 84 Courts of Judicature Act 1964. There are two conflicting decisions in the Court of Appeal, wherein in one case it was held that the particular section
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The Ocean Conference United Nations,New York ,5-9 June 2017

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This year I am schedule to speak on the role of parliamentarians in protecting the oceans at the United Nations (UN) on 5th June 2017 Fish and other ocean creatures are the main sources of protein and an important source of food for many, especially Malaysians. Overfishing have resulted in the depletion of many fish stocks As a lawyer and MP, I will be raising issues as to how to combat illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing.
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