KUCHING: Sarawak DAP is expected to take the Election Commission (EC) to court for refusing to grant a public hearing on two objections filed last month on the redrawing of the electoral boundary for the Bandar Kuching parliamentary constituency.

Its state chairman Chong Chieng Jen said the decision on the matter was made at the party’s state committee meeting in Kuching on Sunday. He said that an application for a judicial review will be filed in the Kuching High Court sometime “this week or the next”. The party has 40 days to file the application. Chong, who is the Bandar Kuching MP, said DAP would also apply for a stay of the entire redelineation process.

DAP had objected to the increase of nearly 28,000 voters into the Bandar Kuching constituency with the shifting of the PKR-held state constituency of Batu Lintang into it. The “new” voters from Batu Lintang would push the total number of voters in Bandar Kuching to nearly 80,000.

Chong said denying DAP the public hearing on its objections, even though it had satisfied all the conditions set out in the Constitution, was “a wrong exercise of the statutory powers by the EC”.

DAP’s legal challenge comes hot on the heels of PKR’s filing for a judicial review to stop the redelineation exercise in Sarawak. Sarawak PKR vice-chairman See Chee How and a voter in Baram, Pauls Baya, are seeking a court order to declare that the notification by the EC for voters to review the delineation was not in compliance with the provisions of the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution

The Kuching High Court on Feb 17 granted leave and would set a date on the review on March 19. See, representing himself and Baya, argued that the EC had failed to publish the Jan 5 notice in a newspaper that is widely circulated in the constituencies affected.

See said the New Sarawak Tribune and its Malay language sister paper Utusan Sarawak have limited circulation in Sarawak, and he has “affidavit evidence filed” to show that these papers have no circulation in various rural centres whose voters are affected, which is required by the law.

He  is seeking a mandatory court order to direct the EC to republish the notice of its proposed recommendations to review the division of the constituencies. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 10, 2015.