The Petaling Jaya Utara MP was referring to the issue brought up by his DAP colleague, Michelle Ng, who brought up the matter of the EC’s alleged procedural unfairness in the objection hearings pertaining to the entry of 949 army personnel and their spouses in the Segamat constituency.

Ng, who is DAP legal bureau secretary, made the claim at a press conference on Thursday, that a Segamat voter who had made the objection was told by the registrar that the Parliament Hansard produced “cannot be believed”.

“The Hansard contained a part of parliamentary proceedings where the deputy defence minister admitted that the construction of the Segamat camp had not been completed,” Ng said.

“We call upon speaker Pandikar Amin to reprimand the Election Commission for the latter’s contempt and we call upon the EC to reprimand the responsible registrar and immediately act to rectify the injustice by reopening the objection proceedings in Segamat.

“The failure of the EC to do the above would only further prove that the EC is not the independent institution conceived by our Constitution. Instead, it is merely a paw of Barisan Nasional,” Pua said in a statement today.

With the Parliament Hansard being the official record of Parliamentary proceedings, Pua said even the courts say it is admissible as evidence.

He cited Section 78 (1b) of the Evidence Act 1950, on the proof required for official documents, which states that “…the proceedings of Parliament or of any of the federal legislatures that existed in Malaysia before Parliament was constituted or of the legislature of any State – by the minutes of the body or by the published Acts of Parliament, Ordinances, Enactments or abstracts or by copies purporting to be printed by the authority of the Government concerned.”

“The Act clearly says that Parliamentary proceedings are proved by the minutes of the session, which takes the form of the Parliamentary Hansard and nothing else.

“If the judiciary accepts the Hansard as hard evidence, who is the EC to reject the official Parliamentary document? For the EC registrar to say that the Hansard cannot be believed, they are saying that Parliament proceedings themselves cannot be believed,” he said.

‘Insult to Parliament’

On Thursday, two opposition MPs – PKR’s R Sivarasa (Subang) and DAP’s M Kulasegaran (Ipoh Barat) – had questioned if the action of the Johor registrar of electors was an insult to Parliament.

“Section 81 of the EA provides that copies of the Hansard are presumed to be genuine. This is provided under the law. It is the official document.

“For them to say the document cannot be believed shows they are ignorant of the law,” Sivarasa told FMT.

Kulasegaran, who is DAP national vice-chairman, agreed, saying the EC should understand constitutional law before making such statements.

“EC officers must act at the behest of the Constitution and not be beholden to politicians.

“This is a sad story, to have such shallow EC officers,” he said.

The objections made were over the inclusion of 1,079 new army voters in the Segamat constituency list in the EC’s third quarter supplementary electoral roll.

During the Budget debate in Parliament on Nov 27, Seremban MP Anthony Loke had asked for confirmation if the army camp was still under construction or if it had been completed.

According to Pua, in response the Deputy Minister of Defence Johari Baharum said that the camp was still under construction and also confirmed that the camp was not complete.

“As recorded on page 136 of the Hansard, the deputy minister said ‘belum siap’ when asked to confirm the status of the army camp.

“Yet, the registrar chose to reject the Hansard as evidence. This is a clear case of contempt against the Parliament,” Pua said.

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