KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 6): The hearing of an appeal by former Sabah chief minister (CM) Tan Sri Musa Aman over who was the rightful Sabah CM — initially fixed for tomorrow — as well as an appeal by him and 32 other former state assemblymen challenging the dissolution of the Sabah State Legislative Assembly has all been postponed.
The application for the adjournment was made separately by Sabah's attorney-general office, and also Musa's rival and Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal.
It is understood that Shafie's appointed solicitor from Messrs Chung & Associates applied for the adjournment on the grounds that he cannot travel from the state to Peninsular Malaysia to assist appointed lead counsel Datuk Dr Cyrus Das.
The postponement was confirmed by officials of the Federal Court, Musa's counsel Datuk Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin and Sabah Attorney-General Brenddon Keith Soh with theedgemarkets.com.
The hearing of the appeal by Musa and Datuk Jahid @ Noordin Jahim — over who was the rightful CM — was initially fixed for tomorrow.
This followed the 14th general election (GE14) in May 2018, when Musa was initially appointed as the CM. However, after Shafie revealed that six assemblymen had defected to join him, Yang di-Pertua Negeri Sabah Tun Juhar Mahiruddin then named Shafie as the rightful CM.
Shafie continued running the state until the State Legislative Assembly was dissolved on July 31.
This was despite Musa having filed a challenge in the Kota Kinabalu High Court over Shafie's right to run the state. The High Court and the Court of Appeal dismissed his application for a judicial review of the appointment.
The Federal Court on Aug 26 granted leave when Firoz said the issue of determining “the rightful majority” should be decided by the apex court once and for all.
Jahid, however, failed in his application for a stay of the Sabah state polls and nomination day last month.
It was also reported that Musa and the other 32 former assemblymen had failed to challenge in the Court of Appeal the move by Juhar and Shafie to dissolve the State Legislative Assembly, resulting in the state polls at the end of last month.