KUALA LUMPUR: Sungai Siput member of parliament Dr D Michael Jeyakumar was denied the opportunity to raise in court the potential health risks to Malaysians, arising from the introduction of a guideline from the Health Ministry on medical fees for foreigners.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court yesterday declined to give Dr Jeyakumar, a former chest physician, leave for judicial review to challenge the guideline which came into force this year.

Lawyer Paveendeep Singh, who represented the lawmaker, said judge Datuk Asmabi Mohamad dismissed his client’s application as she allowed a preliminary objection by the government.

“The government’s lawyer raised the issue that Dr Jeyakumar had no locus standi to bring the action.

“Further, the judge was told that the guideline was a policy decision which the court could not question,” he said.

Paveendeep said the judge accepted the submission of the government, represented by federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan.

The judge delivered her verdict in chambers.

Paveendeep said he had argued that the merit of the application must be heard because Malaysians are at high risk of being exposed to communicable diseases like tuberculosis.

“The citizens of this country have the fundamental constitutional right to live in a healthy environment,” he said.

On July 20, Dr Jeyakumar filed the leave application and named Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S Subramaniam, the Health Ministry and the Malaysian government as defendants.

He was seeking a declaration that the ministry had acted without lawful basis to refuse to discuss the implementation of the new Medical Fee Order for foreigners.

The decision was made under the Guidelines on the Implementation of the Fee Order (Medical) (Service Cost) 2014, which was implemented on Jan 1, this year.

Under the guidelines, there are a set of charges for medical examination, while immigrants without proper travelling documents seeking medical help will have to be reported to the police or immigration.

Dr Jeyakumar said this would cause sick foreign workers to seek medical attention elsewhere as the fees were high.

He added that foreigners might spread diseases like tuberculosis which was on the rise with 24,711 cases detected last year compared with about 10,000 in 1990.

He also raised the matter in the Dewan Rakyat but no answer was given by the ministry, which then prompted him to seek legal recourse. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on September 4, 2015.