Court postpones Khairuddin's appeal hearing on election petition

The Federal Court today postponed the appeal hearing of Pakatan Harapan candidate Khairuddin Abu Hassan over his election petition against the last election's results for the Jasin parliamentary seat.

Chief Judge of Malaya Azahar Mohamed, who chaired the five-member bench, allowed the postponement requested by Khairuddin's counsel Gopal Sri Ram, who sought for a short adjournment date as he was too tired to proceed with the appeal today.

Earlier this morning, Sri Ram had another matter before the Federal Court.

Justice Azahar sent the matter for case management to set the new hearing date, adding that the chief justice would then decide on the panel of judges.

The timeline for the court to dispose of the appeal is by Dec 26.

Earlier, counsel Mohd Hafarizam Harun, representing Jasin MP Ahmad Hamzah, requested for the recusal of Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak, David Wong Dak Wah, on grounds that he had presided on an earlier related matter.

On Feb 18 this year, a five-member bench of the Federal Court, with Justice Wong as one of the judges, had allowed Khairuddin's (photo, above) appeal and sent his petition back to the Election Court for trial.

Khairuddin's petition was dismissed in October last year by the Election Court, which allowed a preliminary objection by Ahmad.

The Federal Court was scheduled to hear Khairuddin's appeal today against the Election Court's dismissal of his petition as well as another appeal filed by Ahmad Hamzah of BN regarding the jurisdiction of the Election Court to hear the trial.

The other judges were Federal Court judges Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim,  Nallini Pathmanathan and Vernon Ong Lam Kiat.

In June this year, the Election Court in Malacca dismissed Khairuddin's petition to declare null and void last year's election results for the Jasin Parliamentary constituency.

In the 14th general election, Khairuddin lost to Ahmad by a 219-vote majority in a three-cornered fight. Ahmad obtained 26,560 votes while Khairuddin had 26,341 votes. PAS' candidate Abd Alim Shapie garnered 8,860 votes.

Khairuddin filed the petition in June last year seeking the court to declare the GE14 results null and void for that constituency and to order a fresh election to be held, alleging that the BN candidate was not elected legally.

Lawyer Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin appeared for returning officer Zamrud Yahya and the Election Commission.

-- Bernama