Don't do what you don't want others do, PR told

A human rights activist and blogger has criticised a Pakatan Rakyat member of parliament who recently won an election petition case against her.

In a response to yesterday's decision by the Election Court to strike out a petition against PKR vice president Nurul Izzah Anwar who won the Lembah Pantai parliamentary seat in the last general election, Charles Hector said Nurul's side should have set an example by not raising technical objections.

In rejecting Lembah Pantai UMNO division youth chief Mohamad Sazali Kamilan's petition, judge Zabariah Mohd Yusof allowed technical objections made by Nurul’s counsel Edmund Bon, and ordered Sazali to pay RM40,000 as costs.

"It would have been good if good MPs/ADUNs, like Nurul Izzah would have not just sat happily seeing the court do exactly the same things that we are critical about," Hector wrote.

He said instead of raising technical objections - something which Pakatan Rakyat leaders have protested in the wake of a series of election petitions being summarily dismissed by the court - Nurul's counsel could have urged the court to allow the petition to be heard on its merits.

"Now, we will never know if that Election Petition if heard on the merits would have been successful or not - it was knocked out based on technicalities ... and, I say that justice has not been served - the right to a fair trial has been denied that petitioner... and worse, any ordinary person would have been on the way to become bankrupt if forced to pay RM40,000," Hector added.

He said Nurul could at least publicly declined the RM40,000.

"When the court awarded such high costs, Nurul Izzah should have objected and said that as a matter of principle ask the judge to limit cost to a nominal sum - maybe RM500. High cost awards only deter a person from coming to court," he stressed.

PR leaders have condemned the dismissals of petitions by its candidates on technical grounds and questioned whether there was collusion between the government and judiciary to prevent election petitions from going to trial stage.

"To summarily dismiss these petitions purely on so-called technical grounds and ignoring the fact that the issues raised in the petitions are matters of public interest which have a direct bearing on the conduct of free and fair elections," said opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Echoing him, PAS deputy president lamented that the court had not given the petitions a chance to be heard.

“The Election Commission said those not happy with the election result could bring it to court, but when we brought it, it was not handled with the way one would have expected,” said Mat Sabu, who asked if there were hidden hands since the same excuse was used and extraordinary penalties given in all the cases. HD