KUALA LUMPUR: Several legal actions challenging the suspension of Parliament during the 2021 Covid-19 emergency were thrown out by the High Court.
Justice Aliza Sulaiman dismissed the judicial review applications by Pasir Gudang MP Hassan Karim and Perak assemblyman Abdul Aziz Bari as well as originating summons filed by the Malaysian Bar and Bersih 2.0.
Justice Aliza, who has since been elevated to the Court of Appeal, ruled that the court could not grant declarations sought to invalidate provisions of the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance 2021, including Section 14, which suspended Parliament.
“This court is not persuaded that the declaratory relief sought by the applicants and the plaintiffs should be granted,” she said before ruling that the applications and originating summons were dismissed with no order as to cost.
In their judicial review applications, the two lawmakers sought a court declaration that former prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s advice to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to suspend Parliament during the Covid-19 pandemic through an emergency proclamation was unconstitutional and unlawful.
They named Muhyiddin and the government as respondents in the judicial review proceedings.
The applications and originating summons were first filed in 2021.
Previously, both the High Court and the Court of Appeal had dismissed them.
But in 2024, the Federal Court cleared the path for these challenges and remitted the case to the High Court for a full hearing on the merits.
The originating summons filed by the Malaysian Bar and Bersih raised several questions of law on the validity of the proclamation made under the Emergency Ordinance.
